Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Is September 15th. It is about 632 and we're going to get this started. We're going to start off with first. I need to announce that Supervisor K is our chair is not here tonight. He is back in Washington DC trying to bring back some money for us here in our County and so and he is going to be online here. So participating by zoom and so I just want to make sure that we've got Vito on here right now.

You do.

Yes, sir. Okay, we miss you. All right, so that's good. So we're all set. So we're going to start off with the Pledge of Allegiance. If everybody would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and then we'll remain standing for our invocation. It'll be Reverend Scott Elliott from Big Valley Grace Community Church.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice,

Please join me as we pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful evening. And Lord, we thank you for Stanislaus County. You've given us such a great place to live with so many great jobs and opportunities. We thank you in particular, Lord, for the Hispanic community that we are honoring and celebrating tonight. We thank you for their contributions in our culture, in our food, in our businesses. in all the different ways that they have made this place just a great place to live. We pray you continue to bless our schools, bless our churches, our businesses, our families. We thank you so much for all the ways that Stanislaus is improving and growing as a community. And we just pray your hand of blessing upon us. We thank you for the Board of Supervisors and all their work and service. We ask that you give them just great clarity and wisdom as they continue to lead. We ask your blessing on the meeting tonight, and I pray all of this in your name. Amen.

Thank you, Scott. That was great. Thank you. Okay. We're now going to move on to our presentations here. We have a couple of presentations tonight. We're going to start off with our 2020... The month of October, September through October 15th, is Hispanic American Heritage Month in Stanislaus County. And we have each, from each one of our districts, had selected someone to represent the Hispanic community as our hero, kind of in that, to steal from Manny's hometown hero, a hero from our district that represents the Hispanic community. So I'm going to come down there and start with Manny. with mine and then each one of us will follow as we go through here. OK, thank you. So from my district, Alicia Arulia was unable to make it tonight. So we'll get together with Alicia later. And she's from the Riverdale tract area. And just a very good, great advocate for out there in that area. And we understand she was sick tonight, so we'll get her certificate and talk to her. So then for Supervisor Chiesa's individual that he has chosen, since he can't be here tonight, I'm going to do it. And so Dina Brambilia. Come on up, Dina. Okay, so Dina I know from my district, probably 10, 15 years ago, when my wife and I used to mentor out at Franklin School, Dina had worked there in the Healthy Start program out there, and so we would see her all the time, and that's where I first met Dina. and realize what a special person she was. And so we asked everybody to get for us information about themselves and kind of what they do in the community is what we wanted everybody to do. So Dina provided one and it was just to read through it, it was just, It was just very, you could tell, very heartfelt. And it's just everything that we want in an individual out in our community is helping people. We get the limelight. We sit up here, and they call us supervisor, and we think we're big time. And we're not big time at all. But we have individuals like Dina who are out there in the trenches every day and just really making differences in people's lives on a daily basis. And so as I read through this, it was just amazing to hear these things. And usually we will read, we'll kind of hit the highlights on this. But I just thought I wanted Dina tonight to kind of answer some of these things. And I'm going to let her kind of in her own words talk about herself. and what she's done. So to start with here, we asked everybody to give us some background about your family, where you grew up, where you're from. So I'm gonna let you start with that, please. And don't be nervous about this.

All right. Good evening, everybody. Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here. I'm really nervous. I didn't know I was going to speak. But first, I would like to start by saying thank you to Jennifer Hidalgo and Eric Ignacio for nominating me and to Supervisor Vito Chiesa for selecting me. It's such an honor to be here. So my upbringings, I would like to start by saying I was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. I come from a very humble family. Everything and anything that could happen to our family had happened. Domestic violence was very high. However, that helped me to get into this field, which is mental health, and think about my upbringing. That's a way for me to understand when I see a family struggling, how it feels. And it's just such an honor to be here and share this with you. And so I've been married for 35 years to my husband, Jose Isaac, and I have two beautiful children, Isaac and Yesenia. They're adults now, and they're outstanding people.

Okay, so then one of the questions was to talk about who influenced you the most. And you talked about your nana. Am I saying that right? Your nana. Yeah, I want you to talk a little bit about your nana. That's your grandmother.

Correct. So I grew up, I spent a lot of time with my nana. My nana taught me the most beautiful life lessons. I will... We didn't have much. Like I mentioned, my nana did not have much. However, my nana will always give a hand to anyone they would need it. We will walk miles and miles and sell slightly used items to very poor communities, even more poor than what we were. And she always, always taught me that there's always something that we can do for someone else, like giving them a smile, giving them a hand if they needed something. She taught me the most beautiful lessons in life, and I'm the person I am right now because of her for all the life, beautiful lessons.

That's great. That's beautiful. Okay, psychology. You got a degree in psychology. What made you do that?

So once again, my upbringings kind of led me to get into this field of mental health. I think that I can understand more the way I grew up. I wanted to learn more about human behavior. I wanted to learn more about how we can help others in that field of mental health. I decided to get into this field, and I didn't put it on my paper. when my brother, my youngest brother, committed suicide. And I didn't see the signs, And so when I didn't see the signs, I decided I want to see the signs. If I would have seen one sign, I believe that I could at least reach out for help for him. And because I wasn't informed, I wasn't educated in that field, I didn't see any signs. And he did have some signs. That was another reason that I got into this field. And besides, you know, I wanted to understand things from my childhood that when I was a child I couldn't understand. And now I know. I know. what was happening at home and why my mother stayed and why my father was the way he was. I understand more and I don't judge my parents whatsoever, but I do believe that we all have a choice and we can better ourselves every single day.

I'm so sorry about your brother. Anyway, thank you for that. Thank you for sharing that with us. Accomplishments. What are you most proud of? What accomplishments are you most proud of? You talk about stuff at Franklin and the Healthy Start, but I'll let you.

Okay. What did I write? I can't remember.

Oh, my gosh. So, okay. So... I'm very proud. First of all, I'm very proud of the job we do at Franklin Healthy Start Family Resource Center. I'm very proud of all the partnerships that we have built throughout all these years. And I just want to thank publicly from Golden Valley, Jorge Fernandez from Golden Valley Health Center, Maria Jaime, Gloria Mar, Erica, Monica, all the beautiful partnerships that we have built. I think it's very important that we build those partnerships that way we can provide the right services to our families. I want to say thank you to all the partnerships. I mean, there's more than what I just mentioned, but thank you for always saying yes to me. Thank you to all the agencies in the county for allowing me to bring you and provide services to our families. The one thing I'm the most proud of is the parents. I think because of them, I am there. We have the job that we have. They're the ones that make our Healthy Star Family Resource Center. And I'm just very grateful for them and for every single person that I have encountered and received services for our families.

Thank you. Just a couple more, sorry. So we talked about your Hispanic heritage and how important, how has that influenced you in your life to get you to where you are right now?

So I'm going to read some of the stuff that I wrote because that's so important to me. So the values that are the most important is the faith, family, compassion, respect, gratitude, humility, and service. Those values, I learned that from my nana, from my grandmother. She's the one, and also my childhood, and things that were passed down to me. My nana was an outstanding woman. She will tell me all the time, and those words are imprinted in my heart. She used to tell me all the time, everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. And I honor those words every single second of my life. I breathe those words. So, yes.

Perfect. Last thing is that you wrote in here, and I just thought it was great. You said something that you talked about how you want to make an impact in the community. And you said you want to offer encouragement in simply telling someone, I see you, I hear you, and you matter. And I just think that's huge. I mean, that's just what it's all about. And we never know, you know, each day as we go through life. But to see somebody and to listen to them and hear them on that day, it might have made all the difference in the world to them. And that's what you do. And so we're so proud to have you here and recognize you as one of the honorees for the Hispanic Heritage Month. So thank you very much, Tina, for everything. Thank you. Okay, next up, Todd.

Thank you, Terry.

Testing.

All right. Hispanic Heritage Month, we are celebrating Lupi Aguilera. Come on up, Lupi. Now, I told her that she was going to be doing a 20-minute speech about all the things that she did. You ready to do it? Okay. All right. Today, we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by recognizing Lupi Aguilera. Lupe's roots in our community run deep. She moved to Stanislaus County in 1991 and settled in Oakdale the following year in 1992. More recently, she just moved to Turlock. But because most of her work was in Oakdale, I grabbed her and just wanted to honor you for all your work you've done in Stanislaus County and, more importantly, in Oakdale District 1. Lupe's commitment to our senior community shines through in her work with the Commission on Aging. She joined the Commission in 2016, originally representing Oakdale, and has served as chair of the Public Relations Committee for the past eight years, a role in which she leads the selection of the Senior Volunteers of the Year from each district. She also is a founding member of the Senior Ball Committee, helping plan, organize this chair's annual event for all of our seniors. Perhaps most meaningful, Lupe co-formatted The Pinks, and if you don't know what The Pinks are, it's a booklet that has every type of resource a senior would need, and a phone number and a contact that they can reach out to to ask for help. With Marcia, and I have that in here just to let me go. Transforming it into a booklet that explains county senior resources to residents who need them. She describes this as her proudest achievement and we've already almost gone through all of them so we're ordering a lot more. One of her favorite roles has been with the Oakdale Senior Outreach where she volunteered continuously since 2007. Her dedication to the city was recognized in 2012 when she was named Oakdale's Citizen of the Year. Her list of the compliment Commitments continues to grow. Since making Turlock her home, Lupe has wasted no time in getting involved, and I'm sure you already have. Lupe built her career with the Department of Corrections, retiring December 2006. This December, she'll mark her milestone of 20 years in retirement. Family means everything to Lupi. She has a son, Gilbert, his wife, Maritza, and their one-year-old son, Isaac. She also has a daughter, Brianna, and son-in-law, Tim. All right, they're here today. They're also online watching with the other million people. Who together are raising two children, five-year-old son, Knox, and two and a half-year-old son, daughter, Stevie. Please join in celebrating Lupi Aguilera this Hispanic Heritage Month and in thanking her for her dedicated, I'm having trouble reading tonight, decades of dedicated service to our community. Lupi, thank you for all the work you do. You've always been committed and you do such great work for our seniors here in the county. Thank you.

Applause

My great-grandmother, I'm originally a transplant from Southern California, and my great-grandmother volunteered for everything. She was amazing. She raised nine kids plus four other kids, and they lived in a two-bedroom house. But when you wake up to the smell of homemade tortillas, beans and rice, What more is there? It fed everybody. It fed everybody. And my mother kind of did the same thing. My mother did a lot. And at the time, you think, why? But as I got older and we go through the channels of life, my journey, I had ups and downs, ups and downs. My mother kept pushing me. You can be better. You can be better. You can be better. You can be better. I was a high school dropout. And then I went back to school. I have a cousin, Teresa, that's doing the same thing. Teresa. It takes a village to help people. And if one thing you'd learned from this event, this award ceremony, make a difference in somebody's life. It can be a smile. It can be a hug. We all go through stuff every day. And sometimes there's days where they're really hard. And some people just don't want to be here anymore. Make a difference. And that's why I love doing senior outreach in Oakdale. I live in Turlock. I'm in Oakdale a lot. Buck knows. I visit elderly that have no family. Or if they do have family, their family don't care about them. They're by themselves. Nobody checks to see if they're alive. We found two seniors that had been on the floor for three days and nobody checked on them. Thank God both of them were alive. I enjoy doing that. It's making a small little impact, but we're all going to be there one day. I'm there now. I mean, I just turned 70. I never imagined being this old. But yes, make a difference in somebody's life.

Yep.

Well, good evening, everyone. For Hispanic Heritage Month, my honoree is Maria Arevalo. And there she is. And unfortunately, she is traveling, but I will be sure to make sure she gets her certificate in person. But the reason I chose Maria is because of everything she does for us here in Stanislaus County. She's been a member of the community for over 40 years, and her passion is projects that develop youth leadership, increase civic engagement among underserved members of the Stanislaus community. A little bit about Maria. Maria received her undergraduate degree and law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Maria moved to Modesto in 1978 to work for California Rural Legal Assistance and from there moved on to roles as Deputy Public Defender in Stanislaus County and then in Merced County. and then deputy county council in Merced County, and practiced law in her own private practice for several years. Maria currently serves as the chair of the Stanislaus Community Latino Giving Circle, a philanthropic organization that works to identify Latino-led organizations that create opportunities in Stanislaus County. So if you would all please applaud for Maria for everything she's done. And I look forward to thanking her in person for everything she does for our community. Thank you.

Thanks, Manny. And last up, we have Chance.

Well, I have the honor and privilege of recognizing a outstanding individual, Erica Ahayala. If you'd please join me. Erica is a champion for our youth out on the west side and in Patterson. She is the CEO and founder of Invest in Me, which is investing in our young people, our next generation of leaders. She has been a champion for them. She has led several cohorts for mental health awareness as well as leadership academies. She's doing outstanding work for our youth and making sure that we have representation for our young people across Stanislaus County, and possibly have a member of your cohort sitting up on that dais one day. I have no doubt about it. But I met Erica several years ago. There's nothing she won't do for the community. That's where her heart is at. That's where she continues to invest her time and her energy, along with her family. And she's someone you can always call upon whenever you need something done and that she is someone I have consistently counted on. She's someone that I know will always come through and deliver and she is leading by example and it is an honor to recognize her today and also celebrate everything as she has done with her nonprofit which has been named nonprofit of the year by both the Latino Chamber of Commerce as well as Love Stanislaus. Erica, without further ado, thank you so much for your advocacy. Thank you so much for your leadership. And thank you so much for investing in our youth.

Thank you, Supervisor. I am honored to receive this recognition as a daughter of hardworking parents. My mom is originally from El Salvador and my dad is originally from Chihuahua, Mexico. I am really honored to receive this recognition. Thank you for recognizing my efforts and for appreciating the richness of our culture. I stand on the shoulders of giants and please know that everything that we can accomplish as a community, we can't do it alone. We have to have the beautiful support of our beautiful gente and our partners across Stanislaus County. I also want to acknowledge my beautiful family that wasn't able to join me today. I have two little ones, and they're involved with all the things. But when I walked out the door, I told my mom and dad I was getting recognized today, and they were very proud of me. And they always say, as they say in their words, echa la ganas, and never forget where you come from, right? So I'm really proud to be here. Thank you so much.

It's an honor.

OK, well, thank you all for that. That was just great. We're all very proud of you guys. Like we said, what you guys do is what really makes a difference out there. And it's an honor for us to have you here today. And congratulations on accepting these to you guys. Congratulations to you for getting these awards. It's been an honor today. OK, we're going to move on. The next thing up is it's Workforce Development Month. And Doris is going to come up and do a presentation.

Good evening Chairman Kayser and today Chairman Withrow, members of the board, CEO Hayes, County Council Bowes. I'm Doris Foster, Director of Workforce Development and with me is Assistant Director Sarah Redd. We have our presentation for today on our Workforce Development Annual Report that our Workforce Board approved yesterday. And so nationally, September is recognized as Workforce Development Month, and we internally as well celebrate that month. Two years ago, our Workforce Development Board came up with six strategic priorities. Those priorities are data-driven, effective relationships, development of a skilled workforce, system alignment and collective impact, outreach and engagement, diverse and strategic funding. What we did differently this year is we arranged our annual report based on the strategic priorities so that we can show that we are meeting each of those priorities and how we are doing what programming that we're doing. Today we are going to present to you a little bit of our system alignment and collective impact. And that is the collective impact is working with other county departments. And so we have child support, probation, sheriff and public defender, and community services agency. And I am now going to turn it over to Sarah who's going to talk a little bit about the partnership of each of those departments that we work with.

Thank you and good evening. So these collaborative efforts have strengthened partnerships, expanded access to quality jobs, and improved outcomes for residents in Stanislaus County. Our partnership with Department of Child Support Services began in 2023, and since that time we have had 170 employment placements, including 77 this past program year. Our partnership with probation focuses within custody and out-of-custody youth. We focus on providing a 10-week series of focused career exploration and job readiness workshops. Our out-of-custody youth, once completion of their workshops, actually receive a Chromebook to continue with their career exploration. Our partnership with a sheriff and public defender is what something that we're very proud of that started this year. Um, something that's very significant is how much this has been a great success for employment and economic opportunities. We had since November, 483 individuals that were served, uh, just to shout out to Romania Carlton, who is the one that's pictured in this photo. Um, they come in and ask for her by name because she's had such a huge community impact. And then last but not least, our long-standing example of collaboration is with Community Services Agency. And we have been working with the Welfare to Work clients, helping them connect with our CalWORKs families with case management, career planning, employment services designed to address barriers and help them create a pathway to long-term economic self-sufficiency. This picture is actually featured of a formal welfare to work client that now has a full-time position with Salvation Army. This is a great example of one of the partnerships that helped create self-sufficiency for one of our clients. Each of these partnerships looks a little different, but together they demonstrate what system alignment and collective impact really means and how the resources can be braided into different funding for our community. And I'll leave you with this, together we can do great things.

And that's our presentation for you today.

Doris and Sarah, thank you very much. That was beautiful. Thank you for doing that. Any questions or comments from the board? Okay, we're good. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate all that you're doing. Okay, we're gonna move on towards public comment here first. Let me read a few things that I was supposed to read with regard to public. The Board of Supervisors continues to offer multiple ways for residents to engage in meetings, including participating by telephone, attending in person, or submitting written comments in advance. So do we have any written comments? Okay, no written comments. That's good. Okay, we're going to open up public comment. We will now begin public comment for matters not on today's agenda. So this part of the public comment will be for items that are not on the agenda, anything that's not on the agenda. If you want to speak on items on the agenda, we will get to those, and you'll have an opportunity to speak when those items come up. Okay, when the clerk calls your name, please state your name for the record and address the board through the chair. Comments are limited to five minutes unless otherwise announced. The clerk will alternate between speakers in the chambers and those participating by telephone. Telephone participants who registered to speak will be called by name. If you called only to listen but decide to comment, press star three to notify staff. When you hear the system prompt, you are live and may begin. Okay, let's get started.

Thank you, Supervisor. We'll begin with Sherry Johnson, who is appearing by telephone. Sherry, you are live in the meeting. Sherry, good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Sherry Johnson, and I want to speak to the board because, yes, I'm back again talking about the 67 people that, yes, this is their real job. A job that seems to be under constant attack and not prioritized as important. I've been before the board speaking many times about different things, whether it's contracts or budget cuts or whatever it seems that people doing the low level work are the ones that always cut and hit first. Board of Supervisors and CSA leadership, who has primary responsibility for developing, monitoring and overseeing the department's budget. What accountability measures are in place? To clarify, what I'm trying to understand is who is responsible for the financial checks and balances? And at what point were financial red flags identified? For example, was there a red flag when the organization at CSA reached 5 million deficit? What about a 10 million or 15 million? At what point was a significant financial issue identified and escalated? I'm also trying to understand how the financial oversight process could have allowed a deficit of this magnitude to go unnoticed or unaddressed. Who specifically comprised the financial team responsible for monitoring and reporting the organization's financial position and what checks and balances were in place? Most importantly, how did the organization reach this point without appropriate intervention, particularly when the consequences may now include approximately 67 employees losing their jobs. If this deficit could have been identified earlier, it is important to understand where the oversight process failed and who was responsible for addressing the warning signs along the way. There is no mention of the people who their primary position is to manage the budget. They're not losing their jobs or being demoted. This big oversight, mistake, misfortune, whatever you call it, is falling on the backs of the line staff that do the work with the clients, the community members, and the most vulnerable. I know a while ago, our associate director got a new name change and a 15% increase. I don't hear any mention of them taking a pay cut or decrease to help with this budget. Last week, 67 of my coworkers were notified that their positions will be terminated. In the coming months, approximately 30 social worker fours and fives, that's 30 that work with the most vulnerable in this community, having education and the knowledge to do this work will be demoted. They'll be reassigned as social worker three. Their master's degree in education will mean nothing. This is due to an $18 million deficit within the community services agency department. This is an incredibly difficult and unfortunate situation, not only for those directly affected, but also for their families, colleagues, and the community we serve. Please keep everyone impacted by these changes in your thoughts and prayers during the challenging times. make the right decisions, make the cuts where they should be, not the people doing the work to keep our community and kids safe. Because apparently Mr. Withrow, we're not big time either. Thank you.

Sherry, thank you for calling in. I appreciate your comments. So for anyone else, that's a budget item, what Sherry spoke about, which was fine. But it's a budget item, and if we could wait till we get to that in the budget, and then there'll be time to speak about and have public comment on that direct subject matter. Is there anybody else who would like to speak with regard to an item that's not on the agenda?

Yes, we do have other speakers registered. The next one would be Susana Vasquez, and that will be followed by Mary Ann Reyes.

Okay, Susana. Susana, good evening. How are you?

Good evening. Doing well and yourself?

Good, thank you.

And good evening to all. My name is Susana Vasquez, council member in the City of Houston. I want to share that approximately two weeks ago, I did a brief walkthrough at Foxgrove Fishing Access in Houston. While I did notice the new picnic tables and barbecue grills, I noticed the eyesore restrooms. They're an eyesore. I noticed also the ever increasing amount of feral cats. That's another topic I'll have to bring on another meeting. I became intrigued about the green overgrowth in the body of water. That green overgrowth is hyacinth. I did some research and learned that just like most things in life, anything in excess is not beneficial. Hyacinth is blocking the sunlight from entering the water, which reduces oxygen in the water. Fish and other animals need oxygen as much as we do. When hyacinth dies, bacteria decompose the dead plants, which could suffocate the aquatic creatures. It is also preventing fishermen from having access to fish. Due to this overgrowth circumstances, the boat ramp is inaccessible. A fishing access should remain accessible. A few days ago, a resident of San Jose County inquired on how this could be addressed and how we can beautify the Tuolumne River. I mentioned I would direct him to the right agency, to the department, this is not within city limits, and that I would also bring this forward to all of you. As someone who grew up in Houston, I would love to see the Tuolumne at its full potential, Fox Grove. Foxgrove has become a forgotten treasure that we must bring back to life for everyone to enjoy. We are blessed with this river and we must appreciate it to enjoy it. Residents have the privilege to live near this gem. Residents should not need to travel to find a good fishing spot unless they wish to do so. When we have one just a few minutes away. We need to move forward with aquatic weed control. And that will be safe for all aquatic species and effective at preventing future overgrowth. Let's make the boat ramps accessible at Fox Road. Thank you.

Susanna, thank you for that. You know, our whole system is complaint-driven, so we need people like you to come up and make us aware of these things if we're not already. And Tara Chumley in the back is going to come around and talk to you about this and see what we can do.

I agree. Thank you. I see a lot of social media, but we do need to come forward. I agree with that. Perfect.

Thanks, Susanna.

Thank you. The next speaker is Marianne Reyes, and she will be followed.

Good evening.

How are you?

Very well, thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Mr. Chairman and the members of the board of directors, I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Mary Ann Reyes and I am the new associate vice president at Stanislaus State for government relations. President Britt Rios-Ellis invited me last night to come and join you all and to introduce myself and share a little bit about Stan State and some upcoming events. So thank you for the invitation and I'm glad to be here. I am from the Central Valley. Glad to be back to the Central Valley by way of working in Southern California and statewide with the California State University Office of the Chancellor, where I also did external relations for the system office. I am a daughter of immigrant parents from Jalisco, Mexico, and just very happy to be here and back in the Valley. I wanted to share a little bit about the Stanislaus State and share a little bit about, as you've been reading, why we're highly ranked. Where Stan State serves as a major regional economic engine, Stan State generates an estimated $600 million in industry activity in San Joaquin Valley, supported approximately 5,900 jobs during 2023-24 academic year. Stan States are preparing, the students are preparing for the workforce through industry partnerships. We're very excited about the partners with employers, with alumni, with community organizations, really to provide students with opportunities with mentorship, applied learning, direct connections with employers. Also through a Career Ready U, regional employers are helping connect our academic learning with professional experience and develop skills that employers are seeking. Also keeping the talent here in the Central Valley, Stan State reports that nearly 78% of its state alumni live and work in the Central Valley, helping strengthen the region's workforce in areas including education, healthcare, business, and STEM. The university says it produces an average about 2,700 graduates annually entering the workforce. So very proud of the work that we are doing at Stan State and the alumni that are out here. Also a significant investment in Stan State and Stanislaus County and the region. Stan State serves as a regional higher education anchor with more than 60,000 alumni and a long-standing role in developing the Central Valley workforce. A previous economic impact study found the university contributed over $770 million to its six-county service area and supported more than 9,000 jobs in fiscal year 2021-22. Stan State is not only an institution of higher education, it is a workforce employers and preparing graduates with the practical skills needed to contribute to the region's economy. And with that, I'd like to invite you to a couple of events that we have coming on campus. One of them is part of, well, with the election season is October 7th. It's a Turlock mayoral debate. This is in partnership with Turlock Journal and the Modesto Focus, and it's going to be held on our campus again on October 7th. In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, October 17th, it will be closing off Hispanic Heritage Month with Warrior Expo featuring Feria de Educacion, which is a one-day college fair journey to help families understand the process of going to college and career opportunities of their choice. These are also in partnership with other organizations like Univision, Spanish language television, as well as PICA, the Parent Institute for Quality Education, and the Mexican Consul that's located in Sacramento. So we have the package of information that I've left with each of your offices, and there's also emails that are sent to your office today that I just sent. We also have, for the general public, we have posters if they're interested in the Feria event as well. So thank you for the opportunity, and I look forward to working with all of you.

Thank you, Marianne. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you very much.

Next, Linda Penfold and Jennifer Hidalgo, and they will be followed by Daryl Terrell.

Linda and Jennifer, how are you? Doing very well tonight.

So, good evening, Board, Honorable Board, CEO Hayes, County Council, Bose, Chairman Chiesa, wherever you are in Washington. So I'm Linda Pinfold, and this is? Jennifer Hidalgo. And we come to you, we come before you as recent graduates of the Modesto Chamber of Commerce's leadership, Modesto, class of 2026. We like to think we are the best class ever. I see we have some graduates here. As part of Leadership Modesto, each class takes on a community project. Our class chose a project that we believed could make a very tangible difference to our community, especially those of the four-legged nature. Our goal was to raise the funds necessary to install artificial turf in the outdoor dog yards at the Stanislaus Animal Services Agency. Over the past year, our class has held a number of fundraisers, including a sip and paint event, participating alongside the chamber at community events, and reaching out to local businesses and community members for their support. Through those efforts and the incredible generosity of our community, we raised more than $57,000 towards this project. Although our leadership Modesto class officially graduated in June, we made a commitment to one another that graduation would not mark the end of this project. We wanted to see it through. So I'm very proud to share with all of us today that as of yesterday, installation of the new artificial turf has been completed in six of the eight dog yards at Sassa. This project is about much more than making the yards look better. The new turf will provide a cleaner, healthier, and safer environment for the dogs to exercise and spend time outside. It will also create a more welcoming space where dogs can interact with prospective adopters and hopefully meet families who will ultimately make them a new home. We'd like to thank everyone in our community who donated, attended our fundraisers, volunteered time, professional services, and otherwise helped us get this project across the finish line. It truly took a community effort.

We had almost 400 individual donations from the community. Thank you for that.

So we would like to invite the board, our community leaders, and everyone who supported this project to join us for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Stanislaus Animal Services Agency next Friday, September 25th at noon. We hope you'll come out, see what the community helped accomplish, and help us celebrate a project that will benefit the Stanislaus Animal Services Agency, its staff, and thousands of animals for many, many years to come. Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys. Great work. Very good. Thank you. Okay. Darryl Terrell. I'm sorry?

Darryl Terrell.

Darryl Terrell. Darryl, good evening. How are you?

Oh, good. It's a long drive from Reno Valley. If y'all don't know, that's down in Southern California.

That is a long drive.

Yes, but I'm here. Because, I'm going to start with a story. Four years ago, my friend got his catalytic converter stolen at our job. I work two jobs. I work at Stater Brothers as a courtesy clerk. I bag your groceries. I work at Lowe's. He got his catalytic converter stolen from the parking lot, and I saw what he went through. And he asked me, Could I do something about it? I'm just one person. But I've been involved for the last four years up and down this state. I've been successful in seven counties. Ventura County, Riverside, Orange County, Kern County, Kings County, San Joaquin County, Imperial County, to Do something that Sacramento fails to do in holding people accountable. Now, I don't know how many of you in here would say that if that happened to you, someone stole your catalytic converter, could you afford it? But you know what Sacramento said? They said, oh, no, no, no. It's a licensing issue. That's not holding nobody accountable. What do you mean by that? Someone could steal eight catalytic converters and nothing can happen to them. True fact, that's a fact. So I've been on a mission to close that gap, to give your deputies the tools they need so they can hold people accountable because this crime impacts Everybody, whether it's Democrat, Republican, it doesn't matter. When your catalytic converter is stolen, you're scrambling, you're trying to figure out how I'm going to get to work, how I'm going to get my kids to school, you're thinking about a single parent, you're thinking about a senior who has to go to appointment, who can't get there. So what I'm here for is to ask you, this honorable body, to join the rest of us to close the gap. to pass the catalytic converter unlawful possession ordinance. What I call it is the one and you're done. Meaning is under state law AB 641, you can steal up to eight catalytic converters and you can escape, you can get away with it. But under one and done, we hold people accountable. Because if a sheriff, and some people will say this, don't we have laws on the books? Sure, we got grand theft auto, we got tampering with stolen, receiving property. But all those you have to remember, though, you have to have a victim. Catalytic converters don't have identifiable markings to match to a victim. So when an officer, a deputy comes by and see them, and I talk to them, and they said to me, I had to let them go. I couldn't do anything. My hands were tied. So that's what we did when I worked with Supervisor Ding and Sheriff Winter. That's what we did. We worked together to close that gap. So I'm asking you, and... to consider this ordinance. Let's close the gap and do something what Sacramento failed to do, to look out for us people, the people who work every day, the single mom, the veteran who has to go to an apartment. Let's close that gap. Let's join a regional strategy. Let's be on the same page. So I'm asking you Please consider this ordinance and let's be strong on the same page because Sacramento is working on it. Sacramento County is working on it. We could do it too. We could get everybody. I can't go everywhere in Northern California. This is one of the first I've been was Sacramento, and that was an eight-hour drive almost. But it was worth it to come here to fight for my friend and fight for the regular people, working people in your community. Thank you.

Thank you, Daryl. Thank you very much. Okay, any more public comments?

No further registered speakers.

Very good. Okay, so we're showing that that's it. Is there anybody else that would like to speak in public comment before we close public comment? Unless it's an item that's already on the agenda, we'll get to that. Okay, seeing none, we will close public comment. And now we're going to move on to the consent calendar. And before the board takes up the consent calendar, is there anybody on the board that would like to pull any of the consent items? Seeing none, anybody from the audience like to pull anything from consent? Okay, seeing none, we'll look for a motion.

Motion to approve all consent items. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to items.

Let's do a roll call vote.

Oh, sorry. Oh, Supervisor Chiesa, how could we forget you? Right. Okay. Okay, let's do a roll call. Right.

So we'll go with District 1, Buck Condit.

Aye.

District 3, Supervisor Withrow. Yes. District 4, Supervisor Grewal. Aye. District 5, Supervisor Chance Condit.

Aye.

And District 2, Chairman Chiesa. Aye.

Perfect. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Thanks, Vito. Sorry we did that. Okay. We'll move on to item 7-1. I think Jody's going to start us off here.

There we go. All right, good evening everybody and thank you for being with us tonight for the presentation of our recommended adopted budget. So in reflecting on this budget and thinking about how to kick us off this evening, I was thinking about the various budgets I've worked on through the years. I've worked in some capacity on over 20 budgets for Stanislaus County here and in looking at this budget and the items that are before you tonight, I have to acknowledge how unique this particular budget is. This is one of the more unique situations that I've observed or participated in in our county budget process. That process brings together really countless issues and recommendations from all of our county departments that really combine together, create a service plan for this fiscal year. And we could spend over an hour on each one of our county departments describing that service plan and all of the issues and how they were all balanced in that 500-page document that we called our adopted budget. And also in reflecting on this particular budget, the uniqueness is really about some of the disparity that we're seeing amongst the different departments that have really emerged over these last couple of fiscal cycles. So rising to the top of that list is a structural deficit issue that is with one of our largest departments, the Community Services Agency. And I know we've had an agenda item and we've had public discussion at a recent board meeting on that structural deficit, but the financial and staffing actions are now coming before the board for implementation this evening, and those impacts are obviously very, very meaningful. We also have tremendous growth in some service areas, particularly noted in our behavioral health department. And then when you look at the county's general fund, that really does support a majority of county departments, most notably public safety. This budget represents another year of really our best effort to maintain what we call kind of a status quo or preservation mode, trying to avoid service reductions within the general fund departments themselves. But every year that's becoming more and more difficult. So our presentation tonight will focus as it always does on some of these high level trends and data for you to consider. We'll also get into just a few of the details and we will invite some of our county department heads to speak on their particular departments where we see significant stories that definitely need more time and attention. All of our departments are here but we have a few built into the presentation tonight that we'll introduce along the way. But I also want to note that in all of our departments and all these conversations I have with our individual department heads and trying to navigate whatever budget landscape they face at the moment, I firmly believe and I'm I think it's very important for everyone in the public to know that every single one of our department heads tries to do their very best to maximize the resources and the service levels within our community. And with that said, every one of them would appreciate and would like more resources to be able to provide to our community as well. On the screen, I always kind of start with this little slide. It's just a real quick overview of what the chief executive office is, what our role is in the budget process. It's pretty simple at a very high level. We first start by looking at our available resources. We're always monitoring our revenues. All conversations begin with what kind of revenues are out there, but also our fund balance and what might be out there in the savings account that could possibly be leveraged. for needs and then we balance those against those organizational needs, all the requests from our county departments, how they roll up the budget, as well as our current and future liabilities. And you will see that we have a standard practice of forecasting out for five years and trying to provide to the board and to the public what our best guess is of those financial projections for the future. And I can tell you, spoiler alert, in this particular budget, you're going to hear, not unlike a lot of other public agencies right now, that our growth in revenue is far behind our growth in expenditures. And it's pretty much across the board in most county departments, but not all that you'll hear a little bit about tonight. But that's essentially our overall theme is that the revenue trend is less than the expense trend. which means there's an increasing pressure on the county savings account, whether or not it's a general fund savings account or a special revenue savings account. And then I also want to recognize that we've got a lot of folks in the room representing the services that are provided as well as the departments that have worked on this. And although I understand my name's on the budget, please know that that work, that 500 page document, really represents the collective effort of every department in the county. and just about every person in the Chief Executive Office. I did my quick count, and we have over about 100 folks who have worked to put together this budget. We acknowledged them on the first few pages of the budget document itself, and I'd like to thank each and every one of them for their contributions to this work tonight. Joining me in the presentation this evening, starting with Angelica Ramos, our Chief Financial Officer, Deputy Executive Officer Ryan Lube, and then Senior Management Consultants from the Chief Executive Office Patrick Cavanaugh, Joanna Navarro, and Joshua Woolworth. And then joining us from our county departments, our three county departments, Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Director Ruben Imperial, Community Services Agency Director Christine Huber, and Parks and Recreation Director Tara Chumley. And with that, I wanna thank you all for being here again this evening. I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to the team to get into the details.

Thank you, Jody. Good evening to you all. Ryan Loop, Deputy Executive Officer here, and it's my pleasure to give you an overview of the county's budgetary process before we dive into all of those numbers. And to do that, I'd like to start with the fundamental question of why. Why are we here today? Or in other words, what is the point of the 2027 adopted budget? While there are a great many functions of this budget, at its core, this budget serves as a definitive operational plan for fiscal year 2027, replacing the rollover proposed budget, which was created to provide the county with spending authority for the first several months of the fiscal year. The adopted budget also traditionally serves as the primary benchmark from which historical year-to-year budget comparisons are made. Finally, in accordance with the County Budget Act, a budget must be adopted by the Board of Supervisors no later than October 2nd of the fiscal year. The 2027 adopted budget starts with a base budget for the fiscal year as its essential foundation. The base budget was created through a process of in-depth review by departments in the Chief Executive Office of current service levels, projected revenues, and trends of actual revenue and spending over the past several years. Base budget includes cost allocation plan changes, cost of doing business adjustments, and salary and benefits costs for all positions, excluding strategic vacancies maintained to help departments align with available revenue. The base budget, as outlined in the budget document, also includes $7.5 million in appropriations for time-sensitive vehicle replacements and general liability costs approved as part of the rollover proposed budget by your Board. Given that the work of building the base budget starts well before the end of the fiscal year and is not designed to address policy level changes, departments have the opportunity to make requests to make adjustments to the base. These adjustments incorporate updated information that inform and allow staff to refine cost and revenue estimates. They also address various fiscal impacts, including those from the prior fiscal year-end closed process, federal orders, and the state budget. And finally, they address service level changes and equipment replacements not incorporated into the base budget. Combined, these changes solidify into an annual budget. So the focus of our adopted budget can vary from year to year depending on a variety of factors, some of those Jody previously mentioned, including local revenues, external funding streams, and the general fiscal and economic climate. The adopted budget recommendations reflect an emphasis in this year on maintaining service levels where possible while being responsible stewards of public funds. Rising costs combined with limited revenue growth have limited the county's capacity to support new general fund requests, particularly those with ongoing obligations. As a result, budget recommendations prioritize upholding board commitments and maintaining critical and mandated core operations. You will also see adjustments to staffing levels. In some cases, staffing is being increased to meet departmental needs when non-general funding sources can be utilized, but you will also see reductions in staffing levels where departments' funding streams are unable to sustain existing staff levels. Recommended adjustments provide funding for the purchase of replacement of essential equipment, information technology, and vehicles. In addition, multiple departments are aligning operations to respective funding sources, including reliance on limited fund balance reserves. And finally, the budget contains adjustments to meet our legal mandates, like supporting elections costs and adhering to our own internal financial policies. On this side, you'll see the totality of our 2027 adopted budget. In terms of appropriations, we're just shy of the $2 billion market, 1.95 billion, with 4,720 allocated positions across the organization. This represents a net $17.8 million in adjustments to the 2027 base budget. A natural question to ask then is how does this budget as recommended compare to years in past and the base? The table on the screen provides a visual comparison of the 2027 adopted budget to both the 2027 base budget and the 2026 adopted budget. The $17.8 million in adjustments to the base budget represents an almost 1% at .9% increase over base, which includes an $8.4 million general fund contribution. In the process of creating this budget, departments were challenged by the Chief Executive Office to make due with funding sufficient to maintain existing service levels and replace aging vehicles and technology, unless additional revenues could be identified. Departments responded by submitting very limited requests requiring general fund monies, focusing on necessary placements and critical operational needs consistent with maintaining current service levels. This discipline supported the creation of a fiscally sound budget, though it means that there are many needs that would enhance operations and services to the community, but remain unrequested, unfunded, and unrealized. That stated, roughly $2.5 million in budget requests are not being recommended, representing departmental unmet needs. This will require departments to fully utilize available resources efficiently and effectively to meet the needs of their customers. For some departments, additional budget adjustments will be required throughout the fiscal year. The $1.95 billion adopted budget is the result of applying the recommended adjustments to the base. Compared to the 2026 adopted budget, this year's budget represents a roughly $61.5 million or 3.3% year-over-year increase. The county is required to submit a balanced budget to the state controller's office each year, meaning revenue and funding sources combined to fully support budget appropriations. It is my pleasure to invite Angelica Ramos, the county's chief financial officer, to tell you about how this budget is financed and balanced.

All right, so I'm going to take us to the next few slides and speak to you a little bit about funding and what funds our general fund. So as Ryan mentioned, the 2027 adopted budget of $1.95 billion is funded with $1.41 billion in department revenue. That's federal and state revenue. Also includes our own contribution to those federal and state programs through county match. and the use of $153.9 million in department fund balance, which Jody earlier calls savings accounts. So it's the individual department savings accounts or retained earnings resulting in the reliance of $385.1 million in net county cost or general fund support. The donut chart on the right-hand side shows the makeup of that general fund support, which predominantly relies on discretionary revenue. This is funding that comes to the general fund and is at the discretion of the Board of Supervisors. We project $339 million to come in for fiscal year 2027. The remaining support is split between $12.1 million in general fund assignments. These are reserves that are set aside for a specific purpose. And $34 million in unassigned fund balance, which are reserves that are available for which for the purpose that the board would identify. This means that the 2027 adopted budget relies on $46.1 million in general fund reserves combined, both assigned and unassigned, representing a critical element that's used in forecasting of general fund strength as identified in our long-range model, which I'll speak about a little more further down in the presentation, and we'll go over that shortly. The chart on your screen now identifies our trend over the years of discretionary revenue, which has been received going back all the way to fiscal year 2017. You can see actuals all the way through fiscal year 2026, and then our recommended 2027 adopted budget projection. At the projected level for 2027 of $339 million, fiscal year 2027 discretionary revenue reflects a growth rate that's below the 10-year historical average of 6.1%. Additionally, the overall forecast of $339 million accounts for an updated projection for property taxes using the latest 2.01% growth as included in the assessor's role and reported for the unincorporated areas of the county. This is significantly lower than we've seen in many years and represents a minimum level of property tax growth of just over the 2% mark. Of note, we've got a couple of years where we had some large adjustments for what we call fair market value of adjustments. Those occurred in fiscal year 2022 and 2023. This is why you see such a difference in those bar charts. This represents the portion of investments purchased with pulled cash, which is allocable to the County General Fund and recorded as discretionary revenue. The two orange bars show where the balances those years would have been without those material adjustments in those two years, helping to better illustrate that trend line and that slowed revenue growth that's been experienced recently and anticipated to continue through fiscal year 2027. Discretionary revenue, again, is one of those critical revenue variables used to project budget resources for the future in the county's long-range model. And of note, I'll just share, as you can see, fiscal year 2026 appears to be slightly larger, slightly higher than fiscal year 2027, and that was very much impacted by some late one-time revenues that occurred in 2026. Specifically, we booked $6.2 million lease revenue that comes from our solar farms, solar lease revenue, for lease revenues that have been collected in years past, as well as $4 million in some strategic funding that have been put out to departments for our building community services infrastructure. We had a plan to invest $20 million a year in the organization in years past, and what was not spent was then returned. So that affected the balance. So netting that out, as well as some one-time interest, the balance seems to be more of the ongoing pieces in the green font. The green numbers are at $336.8 million. And then a little more on discretionary revenue, which is the largest support for our general fund needs. This slide breaks down the primary revenue sources that make up discretionary revenue, which is used to support various programs across the organization. The largest contributor to discretionary revenues property tax at $205.3 million, which is contributing just over 60%, almost 61% of that projected revenue. This is followed by public safety sales tax revenue and Prop 172 funding, both sales tax based and make up just under 30% in total among those two revenue sources. All other revenue sources that come into discretionary revenue make up just over 10% or $35.9 million. But of utmost importance, we bring our recommendations, having run them through the lens of our long-range model, and here you see a depiction of various scenarios that were run in that long-range model to stress test it and provide that five-year look that Jody mentioned earlier. We pay attention to this multi-year long-range model in order for us to provide guidance for financial decisions and to double-check the sustainability of critical services to the community. The long-range model for fiscal year 27 is completed through budget year 2031. and it reflects an average annual discretionary revenue growth forecast of approximately 2.6% on average per year over the next five years, and department revenue anticipated to grow just 1% annually over that same period, based on a look back of the average growth for department revenues over the years. Base general fund costs are projected to increase more than our revenue as mentioned earlier at 3.5% and 4% over the next several years which then means that gap needs to be covered with additional funding sources primarily from our general fund reserves or savings account as was mentioned earlier to balance the budget along with one-time funding solutions and balancing strategies to mitigate projected annual budget deficits. This diagram before you is intended to display the impact to the county general fund should various scenarios and spending materialize. So the red line at the bottom represents what would occur, what would happen to our general fund fund balance if all departments spent 100% of their allocated budgets. Each fiscal year, based on the long-range model assumptions as you can see, result in 2030, I believe, is when you start to see that in that red line, we would deplete all of our general fund balance. And then the following year, if we were to continue spending that way, which isn't possible because you're in the negative, we would wind up at $70.2 million in the negative by July of 2031. Similarly, the other scenarios depict various levels of utilization and are shown in the other lines on the chart, projecting potential fund balances by July of 2031. So the blue line portrays a 95% utilization, which at the end of the five-year model depiction would end us at $78.7 million in the positive. The black line represents a 90% utilization, which would result in $227.7 million, which is closest to almost a break even, slightly lower than our starting point on July of 2026. And then the 85% utilization line, which is the green line, illustrates that we would end actually growing fund balance after five years at $376.6 million. The dotted line shows the most recent year, 2026, year-end utilization where departments and budgets spent 93.8% of their allocated budgets. What's important to note here is that the ongoing evaluation of the long-range model against actual experience would prompt changes in operations long before fund balance and the general fund would be depleted. Another reason why this tool is so meaningful in the identification of fiscal strength and is an integral tool in the development of budget policy and budget direction. So focusing again on the scenario from the long-range model depicted by that red line and 100% utilization projected for each fiscal year, this diagram shows how reliance on general fund reserves increases over time. Beginning on the left-hand side, the 2027 adopted budget is presented as balanced and includes in its funding strategy the use of $46.1 million in general fund reserves. Moving on to the 2026 projected budget, you can see the reliance on fund balance begins to grow. That year requiring $52.7 million. in that year to progress and continues to progress and grow in deficit until you end at the end of the model in 2031 requiring $81 million for that one year in order to balance the budget. Cumulatively, continuing budget deficits would result in a total of $313.2 million decrease in reserves from where we started this fiscal year. That is more than the 242.2 million $9 million currently available. While this represents one of various scenarios, it's important to note that full utilization of the budget requires additional funding to be sustainable. Again, the county would change course to avoid full depletion of reserves by carefully maintaining the long-range model, adjusting assumptions based on any updated information, and using the data to inform policy decisions on operations and the use of finite reserves. Understanding the implications of these projections and the importance of the information provided by the long-range model, again, this is what guides our budget decisions and budget recommendations, resulting in those that are recommended in this presentation before you today. And then one other indicator that we like to follow is the growing reliance on fund balance from ongoing costs. That's important for our review in considering the fiscal sustainability of the budget recommendations. So we pay attention to this over the years and what you see in the depiction before you is the general fund balance or reserve account continues to be utilized for ongoing costs. It's best aligned for one-time costs because it is one-time money. And when we're using general fund fund balance to support ongoing costs, this could lead to an unsustainable funding model should those costs materialize, and we really do draw down that fund balance. So on your screen, you see what amount of general fund fund balance was included in each adopted budget for the year displayed or indicated under each one of the bars. going back to the 2024 adopted budget. What you don't see is that if we were to go further back, all the way back to 2020, the reliance on fund balance that year was $7.6 million for ongoing costs. Now that was, a little low because at the time we had a rollover program where if departments materialized savings, they were able to bring those over to fund their next year budget. So there was a healthy amount of rollover that minimized the amount of growth in our general fund fund balance required. But again, it was $7.6 million back in 2020. But you can see in 2024, we hit $28.4 million for ongoing costs. That grew to $31.3 million in 25. Last year, it was $41.8 million for ongoing costs. And this budget before you today has it growing to $46.1 million. In the orange bars, you see what I just described in the long-range model, which is that if we continue with the cost that we have and the projections we've put together in that model, we would continue to see that reliance. We expect we would continue to see that reliance on general fund-fund balance. for ongoing costs. So just an important indicator for us and something to consider in the future sustainability of the recommendations that we bring forward in our budgets. With that, I will hand it back over to our budget director, Ryan Lute.

Thank you, Angelica. All right, the 2027 adopted budget is organized and presented by board priority area. The chart up on the screen there shows the appropriation levels by priority from largest to smallest as the clock turns. The largest priority by budget is supporting a healthy community, making up 39.5% of overall appropriations. Delivering efficient public services represents 22.5% of the county's budget, which is predominantly made up of various accounting budgets that support the entire organization, including benefits, finance, and projects. And it's shown there in that cross-hatched county operation shading of that light green. Supporting a strong and safe community follows closely behind, making up 22.3% of the budget, followed in turn by enhancing community infrastructure, representing 12.8. Developing a high-performing economy and promoting lifelong learning round out the county budget with 1.7 and 1.2 respectively. Next, to help us dive into the budget associated with these priority areas further, it's my pleasure to introduce Senior Management Consultant Joshua Werwer to my left.

Good evening. The recommended 2027 adopted budget for departments supporting a strong and safe community totals $434.8 million, an increase of $7.2 million from the 2027 base budget. The adopted budget is funded by 142.6 million in departmental revenue, the use of 22.8 million in fund balance, and 269.5 million in net county cost. The net county cost represents 62% of the budget for this priority. There's a net addition of three allocated positions for this priority. Highlights for the supporting a strong and safe community priority include adjustments for both probation and the sheriff's office to support California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal, or CalAIM, providing access and transforming health path round three grant work as previously approved by the board. This funding supports connecting eligible justice-involved individuals leaving custody with Medi-Cal, healthcare, behavioral health, substance use treatment, and other supportive services to improve successful reentry into the community. Adjustments for probation include replacing equipment, including five vehicles for the GSA fleet policy, two officer radios, and other IT equipment. An adjustment to support the court pretrial program, which provides supervision and support to eligible individuals awaiting court proceedings to promote court appearances, enhance public safety, and reduce unnecessary pretrial detention is also recommended. Adjustments for the sheriff include adjustments to add four deputy sheriff custodial positions to double staff housing units at the Sheriff's Detention Center West. These positions are funded with Community Corrections Partnership or CCP revenue. All other adjustments include replacement vehicles and laptops, along with grant adjustments for the district attorney, right-sizing of budgets for the Office of Emergency Services, adjustments for contract services, replacements of washing machine and room partition, and increased food costs for probation, and vehicle and equipment replacements, right-sizing of budgets, and staffing adjustments from the Sheriff's Office. I'd like to now invite Ruben Imperial, Director for Behavioral Health and Recovery Services to the podium.

Ruben, how are you?

I'm pretty good. Thank you. I was going to say Chairman Chiesa, but that's what my notes say. Chairman Withrow?

It's close.

Nice chair is good. I'm sorry. Members of the Board of Supervisors, CEO Hayes, County Council Bowes, thank you for the opportunity tonight to highlight the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services portion of the fiscal year 2027 adopted budget. There are several major recommendations in our budget, but today I'm going to highlight and focus primarily on our staffing recommendations. These recommendations strengthen two core responsibilities for our department. First, it's providing treatment for serious mental illness and substance use disorders and administering the county's behavioral health plan. So as a treatment provider, BHRS provides services for children, adults, families through outpatient programs, crisis services, and specialized treatment teams. Our staff help manage serious behavioral health conditions, help folks recover through crisis, and build stability in their lives. As the administrator of the county's mental health plan and drug Medi-Cal organized delivery system, we also oversee the broader network of care. In addition to providing treatment, we act as the county's behavioral health managed care plan. We are responsible for ensuring sufficient treatment capacity, timely access, service quality, provider support, and compliance with Medi-Cal requirements. Currently with a budget of $309 million as presented here today, that is a 15% increase from base budget or $32 million increase. We have more than 600 plus positions along with several hundred contracted staff through a variety of contracted programs that are providing services and resources for our community. That's over nearly about 1,400 individuals that this budget supports in terms of providing direct access to treatment for both mental illness and substance use disorders. The size of our department is only part of the picture. Over the last few years the complexity of our work has also increased. Medi-Cal reform a few years ago and now is really maturing in terms of the organizational capacity, changed how we oversee and manage reimbursement for Medi-Cal mental health treatment services, substance use disorder treatment services, how we monitor services, how we oversee financial performance. Most recently the Behavioral Health Services Act also increased expectations for our department along with other county behavioral health departments throughout the state for demonstrating how funding is translated into services and most importantly outcomes. So meeting these responsibilities requires strong treatment teams which these budget recommendations support. and supported by effective fiscal operations, reliable technology, useful data, and increased clinical oversight. So that is the context for the recommendations before you. And as I said, I'm going to primarily focus on our staffing recommendations. So first of all, several of our staffing recommendations focus on the fiscal and administrative capacity of the department. BHRS manages resources across Medi-Cal, Behavioral Health Services Act, several state and federal grants, realignment contracts and other funding sources. Each comes with requirements governing how funds can be used, documented and reported. These recommended positions support financial reporting, maximizing Medi-Cal revenue and contract oversight. Our second batch of staffing requests also include recommendations for supporting information technology and data functions, including data science and outcome analysts, With the Behavioral Health Services Act and a lot of the Medi-Cal reforms, there are actually, I just got a report the other day, 52 performance measures the department now is required under regulation to report on, to monitor, and to assess our performance over. So there's quite a bit of work that is needed in the area of outcomes and performance measurement. These are no longer options for us. These are embedded and codified in regulation and our requirements for our department. So our technology and data capabilities need to be strengthened and we've got several positions in our IT and data outcomes area. Turning now to our treatment capacity, several positions also are recommended in our adult system of care. These are primarily in what we call our Modesto Integrated Community Supports Team. In our adult system of care, we're adding several positions to decrease caseloads, improve access to care. It's expanding the level of care that we've been needing to expand it for a few years now. And so these positions will definitely improve our members' experience in terms of treatment. It also will improve and give more time for our staff, especially in our adult system of care, to provide the services for our community. We are also right-sizing in a few areas the supervisor to staffing ratios and improving those as well, giving time for our supervisors to better support our staff that are out in the community. Our fourth general recommendation around staffing is our clinical and management positions that will strengthen our behavioral health plan functions. These functions include quality management, utilization management, Medi-Cal accountability, BHSA implementation, and provider assistance. One of the substantive areas of growth for our department, or not necessarily growth, but accountability, is in our ability to manage the Medi-Cal system. These positions are focused on the oversight of the Medi-Cal system, the performance of the Medi-Cal system, and ensuring that we have adequate resources and are reporting in timely ways as well. Utilization management helps us understand whether people are receiving services appropriate to their needs, and quality management helps us identify patterns, address concerns, and improve care across the network. Also, in terms of direct services, we are adding about 13 positions in our housing and homelessness division. Half of those positions are direct services case managers and coordinators of services and some administrative support staff for programs. directly related to the increase in housing programs and housing units that we've been able to partner with a lot of our community stakeholders and especially in the city of Modesto being able to add a number of units over the last few years. We are now adding supportive services staff that actually provide these types of case management services to the individuals living in these homes. We are also in this situation also right-sizing the supervisor to staffing ratio as well. We have also added a manager to this division, primarily to take on the responsibilities and regulatory requirements around the Behavioral Health Services Act in regards to how we manage and expend funds for those experiencing homelessness. One of the major changes around the Behavioral Health Services Act, which affects the way the Department deploys resources, is how we are serving those that are experiencing homelessness and the requirements and the growth in that area did require some management support for that division. Another exciting opportunity that we are taking advantage of, and this is a partnership with the City of Modesto Fire Department, and they are providing the funding for this particular position to join them in the field when they are responding to 911 calls in the community. So we are going to be embedding a mental health clinician to ride along with our fire department and EMS response. We have already substantively increased our co-response with our law enforcement agencies and in Modesto City and Modesto, and we are seeing tremendous success in that area. I've been working with our fire agency who goes out to my end down calls and other calls where they interact with individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorder. So I'm really excited about this project. For now, it's one clinician, but in addition to the one clinician, it is also creating a better integration into our overall crisis response teams right now. So that's one of the neat things that we'll be doing, along with all the other things that I've just mentioned. Finally, I did want to mention that we are replacing our aging department vehicle, our fleet of vehicles. We are, in this budget, have 31, as a request for 31 vehicles. This is primarily replacing an aging fleet. So I wanted the board to be clear about about the use of those vehicles. We are still evaluating our vehicle fleet needs and transportation needs and we'll be returning to the board if we need additional support in that area. So taking together these recommendations strengthen the people and the systems that make care possible in our community. They expand treatment capacity, improve housing support and strengthen our partnership with first responders. They also provide the fiscal expertise, the technology, data and clinical oversight needed to manage and modernize and move towards modernizing our behavioral health system. So ultimately the goal here is to help people receive care when they need it, support treatment and recovery, and demonstrate meaningful results from the public resources invested in this department. Again, thank you for allowing me to present on the budget today.

Thanks, Ruben.

The recommended adopted budget for departments supporting a healthy community totals $768.8 million, a decrease of $3.6 million from the 2027 base budget. The adopted budget is funded by $705.1 million in department revenue, the use of $35.8 million in fund balance, and $27.9 million in net county costs, with net county costs representing 3.6% of the budget for this priority. There is a net addition of 17 allocated positions for this priority. Highlights for this priority include adjustments in the community services agency to right-size the department's budget and balance the identified deficit in the program services and support budget in alignment with the August 4th, 2026 staff report. While the recommended budget supports 927 full-time positions, the 2027 adopted budget does not reflect any staffing adjustments. A reduction in force action is recommended with a proposed effective date of March 31st, 2027 to reduce the allocated position count by 67 positions from 994 to 927. The August 4 staff report authorized the transfer of realignment funding to support department costs as the department ramps down services. Upon completion of the reduction in forced action, an analysis will be conducted to determine whether any budget adjustments are needed to utilize the transferred realignment funding. adjustments in the health services agency are recommended to support reactivating the county's indigent health care program in response to federal h r one bill also known as the one big beautiful bill act which is expected to cause individuals to lose Medi-Cal eligibility. This will trigger a legal mandate under state law to act as the health provider of last resort. The adjustment will transfer a manager from the administration budget to the indigent healthcare program, as well as support consultant services to help develop program eligibility and scope. Adjustments in HSA are further recommended to right size vacant positions in the department. Staffing levels were adjusted after consolidating primary care and specialty services, aligning personnel with current clinic operations, program changes, and available funding. Public health reductions focus on vacant positions to preserve core services, though they will reduce capacity in areas such as disease prevention, investigation, outreach, and community support. Corresponding administrative support reductions are also necessary to match the agency's reduced operational footprint. As Ruben noted, adjustments for behavioral health and recovery services include the addition of 53 new allocated positions to enable the department to meet state requirements related to administrative reporting and treatment capacity. all other adjustments net to an increase of $8 million to support one new vehicle and 31 replacement vehicles for BHRS, align budgets with funding and previously approved board action, and add two new positions to HSA. I'd like to now invite Christine Huber, Director of Community Services Agency, to the podium.

Christine, good evening. How are you?

I'm good, how are you?

Good thank you.

Good morning, board members, CEO Hayes and Mr. Bowes. It is my privilege to share an update on the Community Services Agency, whose mission is to build community by cultivating safety, stability and resilience, strengthening the foundation for all. We are dedicated to ensuring that residents have their basic needs met, including access to food, shelter and health care, while also prioritizing the safety of children, youth, the elderly and individuals with disabilities. CSA administers critical public benefit programs, including Medi-Cal, CalFresh, CalWORKs, Welfare to Work, General Assistance, and Child Care. We provide mandated social services, including child welfare services, adult protective services, and in-home supportive services. Additionally, we manage housing and homeless initiatives for CalWORKs families, including the family housing facility on 9th Street and the cold weather family shelter at the Empire Migrant Center. Our efforts also extend to adults with disabilities and the federal continuum of care programs that support countywide housing needs. With eight community offices across Stanislaus County, CSA is committed to serving residents where they live. Medi-Cal remains our largest program, serving approximately 237,000 residents monthly, or about 43% of the county population. Over the past three years, we have seen a 7% decrease in participants, which is expected after the pandemic emergency policies expired. CalFresh is our second largest program, assisting roughly 91,000 residents each month last fiscal year. CalFresh benefits not only support families in need, but also contribute to the local economy. So for example, in July of 2026, 87,000 residents received benefits, adding $16 million to the local economy by shopping at grocery stores and farmers markets. Over the past three years, our adult services program has grown the fastest. In-home supportive services, which assesses and provides caregiver support for low-income, elderly, blind, or disabled individuals, including children, grew by 23%, serving an average of 9,200 recipients monthly last fiscal year. Adult protective services has seen a 60% increase in reports, averaging 325 reports per month. While child abuse reports to child welfare have remained steady, we have seen a significant decrease in youth in care, with 36% fewer children in foster care over the past three years. Reunification services provided to children with at least one parent have decreased by 42%, and youth in long-term foster care programs have decreased by 40%. Although the number of youth in care have declined, legal mandates have increased, emphasizing family involvement, kin placements, and investment in youth as they transition to adulthood. Behind each statistic is a family or individual seeking assistance. Whether it's a mother escaping domestic violence, an elderly man exploited financially, or a senior with dementia needing support to remain safely in the home, we approach each person with compassion and strive to provide the resources and help they need during this time of crisis. CSA cannot do this work alone. We have approximately 450 contracts or memorandums of understanding with community providers to ensure networks are in place. We also understand the need to partner with the community experts to ensure families heal, learn, and have services available in their neighborhoods. CSA has supported family resource centers for child abuse prevention along with Medi-Cal and CalFresh outreach for over 20 years. Another example is in our Housing and Homeless Division. Through our continuum of care work and CSA-administered housing programs, we contract with or partner with many homeless and housing programs in Stanislaus County. Specifically, we support the county's commitment to contract with Salvation Army to run the Access Center Emergency Shelter, or ACES. We also have a community office at the same location that supports partner agencies and services as a one-stop shop for the in-house. I would be remiss not to address CSA's budget request today. I've been before you several times dating back to September of 2025 to address our budget and structural deficit. While stagnant or declining revenues and increased costs have contributed, our deficit for fiscal year 2027 is the result of the Department's erroneous belief that the entire fund balance was available for use. And corresponding reliance on the fund balance to balance its budget, combined with the loss of significant institutional knowledge about the allowability of funding, led to the implementation and operation of a structural budget deficit. As a CSA director, I take responsibility for our reliance on fund balance contributing to our deficit. We did not have processes in place to document decision making and significant staff turnover created a loss of institutional knowledge. This led to the loss of key information. For the adopted budget being presented today, you see that we must decrease our budget by $29.6 million from the 2027 base budget. We've already reduced vacant positions, reduced community contracts, and decreased operation costs, and today we are asking to reduce up to 67 positions further. Many of them are filled up by valued county employees. As a CSA employee for 29 years, I understand the magnitude of this recommendation.

While the positions span the department, most are in child welfare, where I've spent most of my career.

Child safety remains our top priority, and we are committed to providing the highest level of service possible within allocated resources. Communication with staff is also important. I have sent written memos, we have meetings within divisions, and we have held in-person drop-in sessions. I'm committed to doing more in this area in the months ahead to ensure CSA employees stay informed as we take important steps to align operations with available funding. We will also continue conversations with employees as we implement program changes to understand the impacts on them and the services they provide to the community so we can provide support and make necessary adjustments. Most recently on August 4th, you supported a transfer of up to $5.1 million in realignment funding from BHRS for a bridge. So the final date for affected employees is March 31st, 2027. This will allow for COHR to work with affected employees to find other opportunities within the county. As director, though, I need to present you with a balanced budget focused on available revenues and known expenditures. CSA manages 123 different funding streams, each with different roles and sharing ratios for state and federal funding. We have evaluated all options and are confident our recommendations maximize our allocations and ensures fiscal sustainability. I also want to assure you that we have put measures in place so this does not happen again. We have experienced leadership at several levels in our fiscal program with many years of county experience who will ensure written policies are created so that when there is staff turnover, we do not lose institutional knowledge. CSA has contracted with a consultant who has also many years of county fiscal experience and will help us create these written protocols and timelines to ensure timely reconciliations. As you approved on August 4th, the auditor controller will create an identified legal budget unit for the AB 85 revenue. So it will no longer be posted to fund balance. We have partnered with the Chief Executive Office to review our year-end closure activities to ensure that resources are managed and aligned with county policy for the next three years. CSA will also be providing additional schedules at key budget submissions to increase transparency in our fiscal reporting. Looking ahead, we face both opportunities and challenges. Child Welfare is implementing a new Child Welfare database that was recently moved to a December 7th implementation date. The current database has been in place for the past 30 years and no longer meets the program needs. HR1 implementation began with some activities on January 1, 2026, but began with CalFresh work requirements in June of 2026 and Medi-Cal work requirements in January of 2027. In addition, CSA is working with multiple county, city, and nonprofit partners on a sustainability plan for ACES. For both HR1 and ACEs, we will return in the near future with more information as we better understand the state budget recently approved. Thank you for your continued support and commitment to the most vulnerable members of the Stanislaus County community. We remain dedicated to serving our residents with compassion and professionalism, and we appreciate your partnership in building the stronger, healthier county. Thank you.

Thank you, Christine.

All right. At this point, I'd like to invite Senior Management Consultant Patrick Cavanaugh to take you through the remaining priority areas.

Good evening.

Patrick, how are you?

Good, how are you?

Good, thank you.

The 2027 adopted budget for departments developing a high-performing economy totals $33.1 million, which is a $1.6 million decrease from the base budget. The budget's funded with $29.1 million in department revenue, $5,000 of fund balance, and $4 million in net county costs. The net county cost represents 12.1% of the budget for this priority area. Adjustments in the priority area of developing a high performing economy include a net $2 million decrease in workforce development to right size this budget to remaining available funding in various programs. Adjustments in agricultural commissioner's budget include an increase of $210,000 in the use of net county costs to replace five vehicles per the county fleet policy and an increase of $204,193 in appropriations and estimated revenue to support the salaries of one full-time and one part-time limited term positions to support the glassy wing sharpshooter eradication efforts in the city of Turlock. All other adjustments total $8,427 and include additional revenue for the Ag Commissioner's Office and increase appropriations for our UC Cooperative Extension for a cost sharing agreement between the county and the UC Regents for the county's 4-H coordinator. There are no recommended adjustments to the 2027-based budget in the priority area of promoting lifelong learning. The total budget is $23.5 million and is funded by $22.5 million in department revenue, $163,764 in fund balance, and $866,810 in net county costs. The Nat County cost represents 3.7% of the budget for this priority area. And there's no changes to the allocated positions for the priority. The recommended 2027 adopted budget for the department's delivering efficient public services totals $436.9 million. That's an $11.2 million increase over the base budget. The budget's funded with $649.1 million in estimated revenue, $23.5 million in fund balance, and a negative, resulting in a negative net county cost of $235.6 million. Because this priority area contains discretionary revenue budget within county operations, the benefit of $339 million in revenue that provides general fund support to departments appears as a negative net county cost. This offsets the $103.4 million in general fund usage for the priority area, resulting in a net negative $235.6 million in net county cost. There is also no changes to allocated positions for this priority area. The priority area includes the contingency fund for the county and provides funds to meet unexpected and emergency financial exposures, which may arise during the fiscal year. Per policy, the base amount is set at a level of 2% of the average annual general fund revenue of the preceding three fiscal years. The 2027 base budget included appropriations of $9.5 million for use during the fiscal year for general fund cashouts, health insurance and retirement rate increases, and other miscellaneous unforeseen program or community needs. as recommended to increase the appropriations and accounting costs by $6.7 million for a total budget of $16.2 million. Other highlights for delivering efficient public services priority include an adjustment of $3.5 million for the clerk reporter's office to support the November 2026 general election, which will be partially offset with $1.4 million in estimated revenue. The General Services Agency also has $298,000 in combined vehicle and equipment replacements across its facility maintenance and fleet services divisions. And all other adjustments total $647,023. The recommended 2027 adopted budget for the department's enhancing community infrastructure totals $249.6 million. This is a $4.5 million increase over the base budget. It's funded with $165.8 million in department revenue, $71.8 million in fund balance and retained earnings, and then $12 million of net county cost. The net county cost represents 4.8% of the budget. And there is a net zero change in positions for this priority area. Due to the increase in solid waste volumes at the Fink Road landfill following the December 2024 closure of the Waste and Energy Facility, the landfill is planning $4.4 million in heavy equipment purchases funded by retained earnings to maintain efficient operations amid the rising waste volumes. The planned acquisitions include a refuse compactor, haul truck, bulldozer, boom truck, water truck, and a roller. Additionally, Parks and Recreation proposes a reduction in force for four positions, totaling $242,856. And while Public Works recommends deleting a long vacant civil engineer position and adding a transportation project coordinator, resulting in a net appropriations decrease of about $20,000. for improved project management capacity. All other adjustments total $342,883 and are mainly to right-size department revenue and appropriations, purchase vehicles for environmental resources, and a security camera system at the Bonita Pool. So at this time, I'd like to introduce Tara Trimley, the County's Director of Parks and Recreation, and welcome her to the podium.

Good evening, I'm Tara Chamblee, the Director of Parks and Recreation, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you tonight. Our department is relatively small with 61 full-time staff and 33 seasonal staff this year during our peak summer season. But the dedication, passion, and commitment of our team far outweigh our size. Every day, our employees work both behind the scenes and in the field to ensure our parks, recreation facilities, natural areas, and public spaces are safe. They're welcoming, well maintained, and available for our community to enjoy. The work we do has a direct and lasting impact on the quality of life in our community, from maintaining neighborhood parks and regional recreation areas to managing campgrounds, protecting our waterways, preserving natural and historic resources, and providing opportunities for outdoor recreation. Our team helps create places where residents and visitors can connect, recreate, relax, and build lasting memories. This year, we continue to advance important capital and maintenance projects, including repairs at Basso and Old LaGrange bridges, Foxgrove safety and security additions, Modesto Reservoir ADA improvements, parking lot and roadway maintenance at Laird Regional Park, electrical enhancements at both LaGrange and Frank Rains Off-Highway Vehicle Parks, Salida Park ADA restroom improvements, and a new playground at Bonita Park. The adopted budget recommends funding to add security cameras at Bonita Pool to improve safety and security of the new facility. Our team's resilience continues to be one of our greatest strengths, especially as we navigate significant changes and opportunities in this fiscal year. After 60 years of operations, we will be transitioning Woodward Reservoir operations to our partners with South San Joaquin Irrigation District. While this marks the end of a long chapter, it also opens the door to a new and exciting opportunity. Our new partnership with Turlock Irrigation District and California State Parks to operate Turlock Lake State Recreation Area. We're proud to reopen a space that belongs to our community and excited to offer our first waterfowl hunting season at the park this year with family-friendly recreation opening next summer in 2027. California State Parks has committed nearly $8.2 million in funding for facility improvements and startup costs. Phase one is currently underway and includes improvements to the main entrance, fencing, parking lot maintenance, electrical and water system repairs, restoration of a restroom, the main boat ramp, and west side day use area. If you tried to visit the park recently, you'll notice that the park is closed for maintenance and construction activities, and we really appreciate the public's cooperation while we prepare to reopen the park next year. This transition does impact staff. Many employees assigned to Woodward Reservoir will transfer to support operations at Turlock Lake. However, the adopted budget recommends deleting four full-time positions, affecting three of our dedicated park employees. These individuals exemplify our county values and come highly recommended for any department fortunate enough to add them to their team. The value of parks and recreation is seen every day. In the child playing on the playground, the family gathering for a picnic, the visitor camping at a reservoir, the angler accessing the river, the resident walking through a neighborhood park, and the community coming together for an event. We may be a small department, but our responsibility is great. Our reach is broad, and our impact is felt throughout the county every day. Our department is committed to ensuring that public spaces remain places where people can enjoy the outdoors, improve health and wellness, connect with one another, and create memories that last a lifetime. I thank you for your continued support and consideration of the recommendations in the adopted budget. Thank you.

Thanks, Tara.

At this point, I'd like to pass over the presentation to senior management consultant Joanna Navarro to describe staffing changes at this cycle.

Go ahead. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Good. Thank you. Good. Good evening. Today I'll be presenting on the staffing portion of the presentation. The 2026 adopted budget included funding for 4,904 allocated positions. Since then, through adjustments made during fiscal year 2026 and into fiscal year 2027 to date, a net of 204 positions were deleted. These adjustments bring the current total allocation count to 4,700 positions. The 2027 adopted budget includes recommendations to add a net of 20 positions. If approved as recommended, the total allocation count will be at 4,720 positions. Please note that this total does not reflect any changes that might result from separate actions on today's board agenda. These staffing recommendations include the deletion of one unfunded vacant block budgeted manager one, two position at the district attorney's office. For the sheriff's office, recommendations include the addition of seven positions, four community correction partnerships or CCP funded deputy sheriff custodial positions, one senior community health worker to coordinate pre-release services for the justice involved individuals eligible for CalAIM, one community services officer to support the special investigation unit, and one crime analyst for the Stanislaus County Opioid Safety Coalition. Additionally, due to the reduced cannabis program funding, it is recommended to delete one community services officer, one crime analyst, and one sergeant. For reasons Ruben presented on earlier, recommendations for behavioral health and recovery services include the addition of 53 new positions across several divisions. Seven positions for the fiscal and administrative services division, five positions for the information technology team, eight positions for the adult system of care, 12 positions for the Behavioral Health Plan, 6 positions for the Managed Care Plan, 13 positions for the Supportive Services and Housing Team, 1 block budgeted Mental Health Clinician 1-2 for the Community Response Team, and 1 Confidential Assistant 2 to support the Department HR Division. For the Department of Child Support Services, it is recommended to delete two long-term vacant block-budgeted Child Support Specialist 1-2 positions. These positions are no longer required for departmental operations. Recommendations for the Health Services Agency include the addition of one certified occupational therapist assistant and one physical therapist assistant to support the medical therapy unit. In addition, it is also recommended to delete 36 vacant positions that are no longer necessary following structural and funding changes within the department. For workforce development, recommendations include adding one confidential assistant three position to support the assistant director and to serve as backup to the HR confidential assistant. To offset this position, it is recommended to delete one vacant staff service technician. Finally, Public Works recommends to add one transportation project coordinator to support construction project management and the deletion of one long-term vacant civil engineer in Public Works. The 2027 adopted budget includes a recommendation for two reduction in forest actions. This recommendation includes the deletion of four positions in parks and recreation, three of which are filled as of September 10th, 2026, to be effective October 16th, 2026. It also includes the deletion of 67 positions in the Community Services Agency, 65 of which are filled as of September 10, 2026, to be effective March 31, 2027. In addition, there were nine vacant positions within the impacted classifications as of September 10, 2026, which may provide additional placement opportunities at CSA. These vacancies along with any additional vacancies generated through attrition will help to mitigate the number of employees impacted. These reduction in force positions are not included in the financial figures presented earlier as they are effective for a later date. Approval of this item would allow Parks and Recreation, the Community Services Agency, and the Chief Executive Office to begin the formal reduction in force process. This includes communicating directly with effective employees and their labor representatives to ensure a supportive transition. All proposed actions follow the procedures outlined in the employee's collective bargaining agreement and or accounting policy. The county remains committed to fulfilling its obligations to working collaboratively and in good faith with employee organizations representing effective employees on any negotiable aspects or impacts of this action. Both department staff and labor partners have been notified about the upcoming transition process and its potential impact on staffing. To help minimize disruption for staff, the board approved a limited hiring freeze on August 4th, 2026 to support placement opportunities for impacted employees. The Community Services Agency, Parks and Recreation, and the Chief Executive Office Human Relations Team will work closely together to identify positions created through attrition or other suitable placement options within their departments and across the county. This collaborative approach is intended to ensure employees receive thoughtful support during this transition. This chart illustrates the number of full-time allocated positions noted with the blue line at the top and the number of full-time employees noted by the green line below. From fiscal year 2012 through fiscal year 2025, staffing levels increased steadily reflecting the county's recovery from the Great Recession. This chart shows that the vacancy rate has gradually increased from the economic downturn. The county's employee recruitment and retention strategy approved on August 16th, 2022, along with the recent deletion of 135 unfunded positions has helped lower the vacancy rate from 16.9% in July 2022 to 10.5% as of July 1st, 2026. The recommended 2027 adopted budget includes a net increase of 20 positions, bringing the total allocation count to 4,720 positions. If the adopted budget's recommendations are approved, the vacancy rate is expected to decrease to 9.8% based on the number of filled positions as of September 1, 2026. After the community service agency's reduction in force effective March 31, 2027, the total allocation count is estimated to be at 4,649 positions and the vacancy rate is projected to decrease to approximately 8.4% based on the same position count as of September 1, 2026. And now I'll pass the presentation back over to Ryan to take a look at what's on the horizon.

Thank you very much, Joanna. Coming to a close here, as we move our focus to what is on the horizon, we are tracking a variety of ongoing immediate and future issues. Monitoring and fine tuning of the budget is an ever ongoing process occurring throughout the fiscal year through regular quarterly updates to the Board of Supervisors. This allows staff to adapt and adjust timely to external impacts and internal needs. In addition, several efforts are on the immediate horizon. This includes implementation of new federal rules, most notably H.R. 1, it's been discussed already today, as well as local program changes such as those occurring in parks and recreation, which Director Chumley mentioned earlier. Staff will also continue conducting general fund balance analysis and plan to bring forward a discussion regarding risk reserve levels with the first quarter financial report. These efforts are part of the organization's broader commitment to responsive and strategic financial stewardship. Looking slightly further ahead, the human resources team, or human relations team I should say, will continue advancing its work to address long-standing vacancies across the organization. Finally, in an effort to live up to our internal standards of continuous improvement, staff also plan to explore updated budgeting models and practices, further investigating how best to leverage technology for increased internal efficiency. As always, excellent budgetary work is a continuous ongoing process. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the county budget and fiscal experts that work every day to keep us on track. This budget work would not be possible without any of them, and I thank all of them for their continuous efforts and collaboration. If you would like more information on the 2027 adopted budget as recommended, you can find it along with budgets from previous cycles on the county's budget website at www.stancounty.com slash budget, or it's a forward slash. I really don't know the terminology on that one. Alternatively, you can click on the piggy bank labeled financial transparency at the bottom of the county's webpage. We have a total of 11 staff recommendations for your board's consideration this evening, which are as follows on screen, which I will summarize for you. First, accept the recommended 2027 adopted budget. Second, conduct the scheduled public hearing to receive public comment and input. Third, direct and approve any changes the Board of Supervisors chooses to make, then formally adopt the budget. Fourth, authorize the CEO and auditor controller to make the necessary technical adjustments to implement the budget. Fifth, direct the CEO and auditor controller to prepare and submit the adopted budget document and supported schedules to the appropriate authorities. Sixth, amend the salary and position allocation resolution to reflect the recommended changes. Seventh, approved the reduction in force of four positions, three of which were filled as of September 10th within the Department of Parks and Recreation, effective October 16th, as well as 67 positions, 65 of which were filled as of September 10th within the Community Services Agency, effective March 31st, 2027. Eighth, authorize the Chief Executive Office, the Director of Parks and Recreation, and the Director of Community Services Agency to fulfill the operational activities associated with implementing the above recommendations. Ninth, approve a total appropriations budget limit for annual appropriations of tax revenue for fiscal year 2027 as outlined in the staff report. And for the last couple of recommendations, I'm happy to turn it over to our CEO.

Thank you very much, Ryan. I did want to list these last two because it's a little bit different from normal process. So in addition to those items that were listed in our staff report, there were two additional recommendations that were finalized after the posting of the recommended budget. The first effectively undoes a transfer of appropriations from the Sheriff's Department to contingencies. So as listed in the recommended So specifically the items are listed on the PowerPoint slide here. Number 10 will be adjust the appropriations in the recommended adopted budget by 1.1 million funded by net county cost and the sheriff's operations legal budget unit with an offsetting decrease in appropriations and the county operations appropriations for contingencies. which presents a savings net county cost. The second provides one additional deputy sheriff position to support our county employee security program here with Santa Claus County. This will not have an additional funding requirement at this time, so there's no additional budget action there. Essentially, what we're doing through these two recommendations is moving funds from one budget unit to another with no overall increase to the budget while also adding recommendation number 11 to add one block budgeted Deputy Sheriff 1-2 to the Sheriff Operations Legal Budget Unit that will support county security for the recommended adopted budget. I'm going to go ahead and advance to the next slide. We'll skip that one. We've covered most of that already in the interest of time. And then this will be just a couple of final comments here. So as we wrap up today's budget presentation, I always like to end on this slide and then look at the long-range model as a final reflection and just really remind the Board and the public of structurally with the adopted budget what is the direction we're looking for from the Board of Supervisors and essentially, and there are other nuances, but essentially there are three primary kind of options related to the structure of the adopted budget. You could approve the recommended budget as is, making no changes to the budget presented to you today other than those two additional recommendations I just mentioned. You can choose to reduce the budget in some way by either decreasing revenues and or expenditures, or you can choose to increase the budget to support something that was not recommended in what was presented to you this evening. In that case, you would also need to determine how to fund the increase from essentially four different available options. You can choose to increase revenue projections, you can use budget contingency funds that are in the budget. You can use fund balance or the savings account, or you can shift funding between departments, which we literally have to take some funds from one department, provide it to another. So those are essentially the options that come together to ultimately, and what we're hopeful of, is to have an adopted budget finalized and approved by this board this evening. And then the last note is when I speak about the county's budget pretty frequently, and if I had to pick one slide to just kind of describe the considerations that we look at when forming the majority of these recommendations, I do come back to this slide. It was mentioned earlier, we went through it in some detail, but I think it's worth just noting very specifically. We have a responsibility to deliver a balanced budget in this current fiscal year. And we always do. We are always going to bring a balanced budget. We also have responsibility to look out towards the future and to understand that whatever financial programs we're putting in place will be as sustainable as possible going forward into the future. And there are scenarios in our current long-range model that do show at the general fund level that we would not be in a sustainable position in out years. The dotted line that was on there, as I think Angelica mentioned earlier, that's tracking essentially the percentage of the budget that was expended by our county departments last year. So if our departments just continued to perform at the same level, and then if our revenue projections and expenditure projections are accurate, which they're not going to be perfect, but we do a lot of work to try to come up with the best possible recommendations we can and forecast, then you could see where the county's general fund would go. within the next four or five years. So this is really what kind of guides the process. And I also recognize that some of our largest departments, and we heard from two of the largest departments in the county tonight, are not primarily county general fund departments. But it's also true that the general fund serves as the backstop for those operations. When they do get into a structural deficit and imbalance, we have to look eventually to the general fund to plug the holes as needed. And that's why this really does serve, I think, as the foundational analysis for what our department looks to develop our recommendations each year. And with that said, we appreciate the feedback from the public and our departments as well as the Board of Supervisors, and we look forward to hearing your feedback in this public hearing tonight. Thank you.

Okay, Jody, thank you very much. And thank you Angelica, Ryan, Joshua, Patrick, Joanna, Ruben, Christine, and Tara. Thank you guys all very much. A lot of hard work on your part just in doing the presentation. Thank you very much for doing that. I want to remind everybody, and we say this every time, but it's good to, especially for individuals who haven't been here before, IS EACH OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS RECEIVES A BRIEFING ON THE BUDGET, USUALLY THREE TO FOUR HOURS. WE DO THAT PROBABLY FOUR TIMES A YEAR AS WE GO THROUGH EACH ONE OF OUR BUDGET UPDATES AND WHETHER IT'S ADOPTED FINAL BUDGET, THE PRELIMINARY BUDGET, AND JUST UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. IN THOSE BRIEFINGS, A LOT OF OUR CONCERNS AND ISSUES ARE ADDRESSED AND DEALT WITH DURING THOSE MEETINGS. AND SO IN THAT ONE SLIDE THAT JODY TALKED ABOUT, THE DIFFERENT THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN HERE TONIGHT, A LOT OF THAT STUFF HAS HAPPENED As a result of our briefings that we have and then things that the board wants to change or has concerns with are addressed a lot of times during those briefings. Not that things can't happen here too, but that's where a lot of that happens. And so all of us at least have one briefing, sometimes more than that. before we get to this point here and get into this room and have that. So I just want to make sure everybody is aware of that, that it's not the first time for us to look at this budget. We have gone through this with staff at least once, maybe twice for some of us for multiple hours. So everybody's aware of that. So before we go out to a public hearing, I want to give everybody on the board a chance if they have any questions prior to us opening up the public hearing. Anybody have any? Chance, go ahead.

Thank you, Vice Chair. I appreciate it. I just have some comments tonight. I mean, I've been pretty consistent the last few budgets on where I've stood on this matter. And, you know, I believe the best way to prevent service reduction is to build a strong foundation. And how you build a strong foundation is by prioritizing our frontline employees. I still have concerns regarding our overall budget. I have been on the record in the past that's stating that this may be a balanced budget, but I don't believe or I'm not convinced that is yet to be an efficient budget. Our frontline employees are being asked to do more with less, and I think some of the cuts tonight are going to be further evidence of that. And I know Mr. Imperial had mentioned that we are doing a staffing ratio analysis as related to our managerial staff and that's great and I hope that work continues and hopefully we can find some significant findings from that. But again, I'm going to oppose the budget again tonight. I believe this will be my third year of opposing the budget based on the concerns I have regarding those staffing ratios and how it compares to our frontline employees. And I am of the belief, and I'm going to stay consistent on this, that our county government is far too top heavy. I believe that our staffing ratio needs a realignment. And our primary focus needs to be about building a stronger foundation, and I believe that is by prioritizing our frontline employees.

Okay, Chance, thank you very much. Anybody else? Nobody else here on the dais at this point before we open the public hearing. Vito, anything you'd like to say before we open the public hearing? Okay, perfect. Thank you. Okay, we will now open the public hearing. Okay, so we have several speakers that are here. I don't think we have anybody online at this point as far as speakers, but we just have people in the room. Okay, and Mary, I'll let you start us off here.

There's no one currently registered on the phone. I have 10 public comment cards in my possession now, and we'll begin with Harlan Diven, and that would be followed by Lynn Ribley. Ms. Diven.

Harlan, good evening. How are you?

Good evening. I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good, thank you. So good evening, chair, members of the board. My name is Harlan Diven. I'm here as a member of the board of Haven. healthy alternatives to violent environments. For nearly 50 years, Haven has served survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking across Stanislaus County, providing emergency shelter, crisis intervention, and safety planning to people at their most vulnerable moments. We work alongside the county's community services agency on a regular, continual basis. When a mother flees an abusive home, when a child discloses abuse to a teacher, when a family in crisis has nowhere else to turn, CSA social workers are often the ones to pick up that call. The budget before the board tonight includes a plan to eliminate 67 positions from CSA, which we've been talking about, including 39 social workers. By reports from within the department that represents approximately a quarter of the frontline staff, in child protective services. That division is already missing state mandated response and documentation deadlines within its current staffing. That gap is about to widen. This was preventable and families will suffer as a result. When frontline protective services shrink, it is not evenly felt it adds to and even creates new inequities. the opposite of what a safety network is designed to do. Slashing funding to an already struggling, already underfunded agency is not the answer and is not an attempt to address any systemic issues. These cuts will foreseeably result in deeper inequities within our system. Children's well-being, and in some extreme cases, their lives are on the line. The problem cannot be overstated when a quarter of the county's child facing social workers are about to be cut or demoted. We don't know yet how many underserved and vulnerable children this will affect across the county, many of whom interface with Haven as well. These are our clients. These young people need and deserve our care and attention, and we cannot turn away from them. We are asking the board to slow your decision-making here. I know we're at a crossroads, we're at a moment of decision, but please, Consider this vital resource for children and families more thoroughly. Protect the workers who protect our children. Here's what happens when we don't. Every social worker we cut tonight is a family haven we'll likely meet later. After danger has already escalated and after a child has already been hurt. We are a vital safety net within this county and we are communicating clearly tonight that this is dangerous for children and families. Protect these frontline roles now while there is still time to do it. We urge you to refine staffing recommendation number seven related to this reduction in force. Protect these frontline roles now. Like I said, Haven stands ready to work with this board, the county, and fellow agencies to find a path forward through this CSA budget crisis. And we prioritize and seek to protect those most vulnerable, the children and families in our community that are affected and protected by CPS here. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Lynn Ribley, and she will be followed by Erica Hain.

Good evening. How are you?

Good evening, Chairman. I am well. I thank you all for having us here and listening to us. My name is Lynn Riley. I'm currently the vice president of the board at Haven. I'm also a family medicine physician. As Harlan has been able to tell you a bit more about Haven, I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about what it's like being a family medicine physician in a community where Child Protective Services is not able to fulfill its mission. I came to this community as a physician in 1999 and did my residency here. I am actually the physician who opened the Paradise Medical Office for this county. I spent three years there before becoming a hospitalist at Doctors Medical Center. I also spent time as the Stanislaus County correctional physician, which includes juvenile hall. And I spent my final years doing addiction medicine. I have worked in settings that have allowed me to see again and again and again the impact of failing to protect our children, of not being able to provide them with the resources that they need. What happens? Some of them die. Those who don't die because of abuse and stress in their environments have permanent difficult changes to the brain that forever impact their lives. They are predisposed to mental health problems including addiction and other disturbing patterns that are not their fault. They're the result of brain rewiring during childhood in a system that didn't protect them. We at Haven and I understand that you guys are facing a very difficult situation here. There's a real and severe budget shortfall. But this was created by management issues, not by frontline workers, and certainly not by the children that are about to lose services. The consequence of that shortfall should not fall on the children. What I have heard are things that will help protect some of the social service workers who can get other placements within the county. I haven't heard what the plan is for all of the children that are not going to have what they need and for the mothers who are trying to protect those children. We started this meeting by celebrating community members who have made a difference, mostly because they reached out and let people know, especially children, that they mattered, that they could make a difference. Please, before you vote on this, think about the message that you sent by further cutting Child Protective Services, which already cannot meet state mandated reporting requirements. This is not just about social workers losing their job. This is about children having permanently damaged lives or even not growing into adulthood because this community failed to provide the services that they need in their most dire times. As Harlan has said, Haven will do anything we can to help this board provide more services to this community. We request that you take a pause here and think about the individuals that are going to be impacted. The cost of those impacts to this county over the next several decades, and whether or not there are other ways that perhaps we've not yet looked at to fix this shortfall. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Erica Hain, followed by Veronica Ambrose.

Erica, good evening, how are you?

I'm good, how are you? I'm good, thank you. So some of you might know me. I was introduced, my name is Erica Hain. I'm an organizer with the North Valley Labor Federation. Some of you I've met in person, and some of you I have not, so it's a pleasure to be here tonight. The reason why I'm here is because These people are affiliates. And tonight we heard stories that reflected numbers. 65 people, 67 people, this net positive, this net loss. I want you to look at these people. These are people who dedicated their working lives to providing necessary services. And they believe that their service with the county would be rewarded with a fair contract, with fair wages, with the ability to advance and build a career. But tonight, you're reducing them to a number, a number that has more than an impact on the community, which I will get to. But if you guys haven't applied for a job lately, There's thousands of people looking for jobs, for maybe tens of jobs. And we talked about some mitigation strategies, but nothing is defined. And these people, these working people, these union members, they believed in the jobs that they did, and now they have to find something new. And in the course of finding something new, who loses? The community loses. We heard some compelling stories from the people at Haven. And I would like to give my personal story. When I worked for Stockton Unified School District, I was a mandated reporter. And in that time, I saw things that, unfortunately, I will never be able to forget. Violence towards children, sexual violence, physical violence, emotional violence. And it was the CPS workers who I connected with who helped get those children out of those situations. And I saw that with my own eyes. And we're talking about social workers. We're talking about CPS workers. And these people, these skilled people who've given their lives to this mission are now being told, we may have a job for you. We may not have a job for you. And in the meantime, children live under violence, children die under violence, and the community is lacking what it needs. So what I'm asking for you today is, I can't speak their story, but I beg for you to listen to their stories, to hear the compelling reasons why they deserve to retain their jobs in the way that they were promised, in the way that was negotiated, through no fault of their own, and to continue to provide the services that they've done. So, with so much self. You go home from a job like that, and you've poured from your cup all day. And who pours into your cup but your family? But how can you support a family when there's no job for you to go to, with no guarantee, when gas prices are almost $6 a gallon, when rent prices are through the roof, and when there are so many people waiting for jobs? The NVA level has the back of our affiliates, and we're here to support them. encourage you to give true credence to the stories that they give you tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Erica.

Veronica Ambrose, followed by Carlo Vasquez.

Veronica, good evening. How are you? Good evening. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. It's my honor to be here and I bring with me a wealth of knowledge. I have about 20 years experience working in public schools and being able to provide services through Head Start, Great Beginnings, First 5 California, and various programs such as that where I've been able to go into high need areas and help families and children directly. Some of those locations have been domestic violence shelters and recovery shelters where I have seen the need in our community for additional supports. What no one has talked about yet, which I know there are so many points that we could touch on, so I'd like to talk with you a little bit about adverse childhood experiences and how those will impact our budget in the future. Adverse childhood experiences, also known as ACEs, can lead to major health issues. cost, including increases in diabetes, cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, and a myriad of other physical health diseases that will end up in our ERs. It also leads to higher use of substance use disorder, mental health disorders, issues like that. And I know these are things that all of you care about because earlier today you brought up employee after employee who's doing this hard work, who's working in mental health, working with seniors, working with youth, right? And I know you have so much respect for them. But then at the same time, in the same meeting, you're going to be cutting services for those same people that those employees are serving. And what you're going to end up doing by cutting these frontline workers that are really there when crisis happens when these families and our communities need all of our support, it's going to go to our other community workers and it's going to impact behavioral health. It's going to impact our seniors. It's going to impact our disabled because those are the families that are most impacted by these kinds of cuts. We're going to see it in black and indigenous families of colors, which you all represent. We will see it in LGBTQ plus youth. who are more likely to be in like the foster system, more likely to have difficulties finding employment, more likely to become unhoused. We will see it in low income families, we will see it with families with chronic illness and disabilities, and we will see it impacting women. So while I know that this is a lot for you to consider and you've heard many stories, a lot of different numbers, this is not something that we can cut. Services to families and youth is not something we can afford to cut. Because if we're not paying for it now, when they're young, when we still have an opportunity to go into these homes and create positive long-term chances that will set up these children and these families for increased income, for better health results, for better life results, that's something you need to consider. And this is also gonna impact a lot of mandatory reporters. So I'm not sure if any of you have been mandatory reporters in the past or have had to make a call to CPS. I have had to make several. It's a very emotional moment having to file your first CPS report when it is a child that you know and care about and are working with. This is going to stress those mandated reporters because I cannot tell you how many times I have called to mandate report something and never hear back whether or not it's even been followed up upon. And that's disheartening as a provider to not know whether or not our calls for support are even being heard, let alone responded to, and knowing that we're serving these children and these families that have needs beyond what we personally, like whoever's in that room right now, can give them, we need these emergency supports. And not only will it impact the individuals who will lose their jobs, their families, their circles, the communities that they live in, this is going to impact the children. In 2014, Princess, an 11 month old, was put in a resource home in Stockton and was taken to death. I was working with some of the early teachers that were helping that family, and every single one of them was deeply impacted. And more recently in Santa Clara, we had a two-year-old who was recently killed. And four social workers are facing charges. So if this ends in death, it is not the folks up here who will be facing criminal charges. It is your social workers who are on the front lines. So please do not cut them. Thank you.

Thank you, Veronica.

Carlo Vasquez followed by Karen Clark.

Carlo, good evening. How are you? Hi, good evening. I'm doing okay. Hi everyone. Board members, Board of Supervisors, CEO, County Council. My name is Carlo Vasquez. I am a Health Education Specialist with Stanislaus County Health Services Agency and I am also a member of SEIU Local 521. I actually don't have anything written here today, which is a little bit unusual because I just want to tell you a story. So this is something that happened to me a few weeks ago at work. We received a phone call for someone looking for dental services, right? So part of my team encompasses our oral health program over there at public health. This is a person that I'll try to keep vague to respect their privacy, but this is a person that had recently cracked a tooth, really needed some emergency dental care, right? If any of you have ever cracked a tooth, that's a big ouch. And so this person really needs some emergency dental care and was really struggling financially, right? Had less than $100 in their bank account. What are you supposed to do with $100, especially when it comes to something health related? But you know what, we have resources. We know what to do in that case. Let's go ahead, let's log in to our dental navigation portal, look at all of the different Medi-Cal providers for dentistry. Oh surprise, this person doesn't have Medi-Cal. That's a challenge. Okay, so let's get you enrolled for Medi-Cal. Except, turns out that's what this person was doing the entire afternoon before they called me. This person had been trying to get in touch with our community services agency to get some help enrolling for Medi-Cal for the past four hours. And every 20 minutes, that robotic line holder, that phone tree that, I don't know if we've all experienced, but that gigantic phone tree that placed them in line, had them wait, every 20 minutes they would hang up on them automatically. So I tell you that to communicate that this is a department that is impacted, right? The workload is so high that not even the computers can keep up. And so here we are reducing services even more? That doesn't make very much sense to me. And as I think about that, I can't help but think about our county values, right? One of our county values is that each person matters. So how can we say that each person matters when I'm over here on the phone with someone who has less than $100 in their bank account and I'm not able to do anything for them? At least not in the way that we normally would do things. because apparently they don't matter enough to have the services available to go ahead and get them the help that they need. I also can't help but think about our other county value. One of them is that we are good partners. How can we say we're good partners if we have some of our partners here talking about how bad of a partner we would be if we make this cut? That doesn't make very much sense to me either. And even internally, how can we be good partners if this reduction in force, this gigantic workload that we're asking our employees to do, to be in charge of, this reduction in force in this department that isn't even mine is somehow preventing me from doing my job correctly. How can we be good partners to ourselves and how can we be the best partners to the people that we're serving? And those are just some of the questions that I'd really like you all to consider as you decide whether or not to go ahead and approve these aspects of this budget. Thank you.

Thanks, Carlos. Karen Clark, and she will be followed by John Sorrell.

Karen, good evening. How are you? Good, good, as they say. I'm great. Thank you so very much. I definitely would like to say thank you to the board members, especially those persons who took the time to... hear employees who were part of the rifting process, impending rifting process. Thank you so very much for listening here to be able to hear what the employees had to say. Their concerns and their major concern was regarding the public Thank you for that. Thank you to Buck Condon. Thank you, Terry Winthrop. Thank you so very much, Chance. Thank you so very much for all the things that you did. We, as you, will always have to do something that is against the grain and out of the norm. And so that's what SEIU did tonight. We did something against the grain and out of the norm, where we invited community partners to be able to say how we would be affected. And in the midst of us, you will see less than 41 of the 67 people that will be rifted. Why? Because when you see they don't have on all purple. They're just our neighbors. They're just community members. They're just people who want to serve the community in such a dynamic way. And because they are that type of people, they decided to stay three hours. Three hours to have a chance for you to say, look, you are our leaders, and we expect things of our leaders. We expect our leaders not to be perfect, but we expect our leaders to be integral. We expect our leaders to have good character. We expect our leaders to take responsibility for whatever has done and to take us forward. Because you can only be a leader if you have some people following. And these are the people who are following you. I'll say to you with all the speech that I had, I'll say to you, you are our leaders. And you must take a pause. You said that you cannot say no. But you have to take a pause to see if there's another opportunity, to see if there's another way. Because after all, we're following you. We, these are some extraordinary people who do extraordinary things every day. And they do it every day, and when they do it every day, they look and have to say to themselves, well done. You have, during the inaugural address of the county, said so many things about the frontline workers. And in you saying things about the frontline workers, you said we wouldn't have a county without the work that they do. Well, you heard about some of the work that they've done from our partners that you partner with. I'm saying take a pause. Take a responsibility that says, no, what can we do to rearrange? What can we do? I know when you hear us, when you hear SEIU, you usually hear us saying, What has management put in? What has anyone put in? Have you taken 5% so that 5% could stay in the community, be protected? Will you deduct your raise in order for them to be protected? Because believe you me, if the rift continues, we know that there are not that many as are being rifted in the county. So someone is going to lose a house. Someone is going to lose transportation. Someone is going to lose food. Someone is going to be homeless. Someone, but don't let it be us. Let us help those who are homeless. Let us help those who are subject to violence, abuse, addiction. Let us help those. These are ordinary people that's doing extraordinary things. that is asking you, our leaders, to whom we are following, pivot. Do something different. Do something different than an automatic cut of the employees and the frontline employees at that. Do something different in order for you to see that these people, ordinary people that do extraordinary things, are worth it all. You're our leader. Let's pivot. Let's pause. Because we can't afford to lose any more ordinary people that does extraordinary things. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up is John Sorrell, followed by Steven Filling.

John, good evening.

Good evening.

My name is John Sorrell. That's how I pronounce it. It rhymes with Braille. I hope everybody, I hope there aren't too many people that need to use that, getting their, reading this problem through. You know, by the way, I wanted to mention that I'm not one of the social workers that's going to be impacted. I'm actually the recording secretary at the moment for the Stanislaus Tuolumne chapter of the North Valley Labor Federation. And I'm a retired college professor, computer science professor, and an active member of the California Faculty Association, which is one of the affiliates of the NVLF. I've also served as the past, I've served as president, chapter president of the California Faculty Association chapter for CSU Stanislaus many times in a row. So, and, you know, despite all those august qualifications, I find myself really pretty much lacking, you know, in the ability to add or detract, you know, from anything that anybody, that all these people, these experts have said up till now. So I'm just going to add a few things. you know, just from the standpoint of kind of a bystander and looking at what I'm seeing in the way the cuts are proposed, it just seems like somebody came along with an atomic bomb and kind of looked around and said, oh, let me see, you know, let me just randomly pick a one, just one person to drop the bomb on, and oh, okay, I'll do it to those folks. It kind of feels like that, and I just ask myself, you know, why not line up 1,000 people and cut off a fingernail from each one instead of taking one person out of 1,000 and just offing them and erasing them from the face of the earth. You know, if these cuts are made, which has been amply explained, it's going to affect a lot of people that are charged with providing social services. And as has been eloquently said, it's going to affect very vulnerable people who they serve. And so the question comes up, why? It really seems like there are some things that count that haven't been counted yet. My dad was an accountant, a certified public accountant. And I understand the personality. But it looks like maybe somebody in the process here is overlooked. uh... you know those some things that count very much uh... and you know the people of the community are going to take notice of this and you know they're going to be asking okay if you really think that this is if we all really think that this is these are the measures that should be taken then Explain to me, right? Give me a really good explication of why it has to be done like this. Because they're going to be thinking about the very serious effects on vulnerable people. So I guess I'll just close with recommending that everybody concerned figure out what they're gonna what they're gonna say when those when those people ask those questions. Thank you.

Next speaker is Dr. Steven Filling and he will be followed by Alejandro Sanchez and those would conclude our public comments that I have in my possession.

Thank you. Steven how are you?

I am doing well but a bit sad truthfully.

I'm gonna ask you to get that mic up closer to you so that

How's that? A little better? Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. My name's Steven Filling. I am a professor simultaneously of accounting and ethics at Stan State. And I find with both of those hats on, feeling a little bit sad right now and a bit perplexed. I think, as others have noted, the awards you all presented at the beginning of this session had a common theme that was service to others, most particularly service to underserved communities, service to those that need it the most. I can't imagine a more worthy population than children, most especially children in troubled homes. The proposal here would effectively wipe out our ability to do that, to provide the services that keep those people from having even worse lives than they experience now. As an accountant, I know that it takes a lot of work to create budgets. It takes a lot of negotiating. It takes one heck of a lot of time to create those nifty PowerPoint slides with all the numbers on them. But I'm also aware that sometimes those things get created without enough attention to the core values of the organization. I think the core values of Stanislaus County are indeed providing service to people, and that needs to be the number one thing. Yes, we have to balance the budget, but I'm moderately certain that you can instruct these very talented and intelligent folks to go back to their work desks and come up with a solution that doesn't involve marginalizing all those people, and I respectfully ask that you do so. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Alejandro Sanchez.

Alejandro, good evening. How are you?

I could be doing better, I think.

But how are you guys doing?

Hope you're doing OK. So I was going to show you some numbers and stuff that I have written, but I don't think it matters anymore. People told you about the numbers. I'm just going to tell you a little bit about my experience as a social worker. I helped the community. I moved to the United States 20 years ago. with, you know, because my dad told me, like, look, you moved to the United States, you work hard, you're responsible for your stuff, for your actions, you're going to do great. So I was thinking that I was doing the right thing, right? And also, it can take a very long time because I've got to go put my kids to sleep, too. So, again, back to this. What I'm asking you to please note, just give us more time because the people that you see over there working every day to help out the community, your community, our community, the ones that we love, that we represent, that you guys represent, that we care about every day, that those people over there, they work. I see them work every day. Sometimes 10, 12 hours straight, I do it too, because we love our community, because we love and we care for our community, because we want our community to be better, right? And then we were not responsible for the budget deficit. Let's come up with something else in which the people responsible for the budget deficit are the first ones to face the consequences of their actions, right? Or lack of. And I'm just asking for more time so we can make the adjustments necessary to have a better budget so we can continue to provide services to our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Alejandro. Okay, so that's all the speaker cards we have. Anybody else that would like to come up? Milt, come on up. Milt, good evening. How are you?

Good evening. Yes, I have some general comments. And I'd like to see you bring some common sense back to our county. There's just a lack of common sense here. We know there are going to be ups and downs. We've seen that in the past. We see that with the Great Recession. We see that with COVID. These things come up. We need to bring common sense back to the county. And then I'm going to focus on the federal government and what they've done. We are now in a $40 trillion debt. $40 trillion. The debt was just $14 trillion in 2012, and now it is $40 trillion. That's a $26 trillion increase in just 12 years. And you're depending on money from them. You're always depending on money from the state and from the federal government. It's not going to be coming because they're too irresponsible in many instances. And but basically I call out what you are doing, and I know this is improper term, but it's kind of like your money laundering. You're waiting for the money to come. You have to have the resources, you have to build the resources that are going to be needed by revenue generation at the county level. We can't depend on the federal government. What did the federal government do? They gave a tax break to people that make the most money, a $1.4 trillion tax break to the people in the nation who are making the most money. That makes no sense. You can't depend on the federal government. You've got to work at the county level. Additional funding increases could be fees whenever possible. I'm gonna give general fees, not just for specific fees here. Okay, you have the county waste. We have to take care of the county waste. So what do we do? We charge more to the cities. We charge more to the people who are bringing waste to the county. We don't subsidize their waste. We charge for what they're bringing us. We make them pay for it. Okay, what did we do with sales tax? We did sales tax. We got a sales tax so we could have a library, great library in Stanislaus County. It's a 1 8th percent sales tax of the entire county and it's giving us a great library system. That's what we want to do. We need to start raising taxes here. I know no one wants to because you're not going to get voted in. Well, you have to get voted in because we need taxes. We need money to pay our debts. The Sheriff's Department, okay, they can get their funding through fines. I mean, when someone breaks the law, they should be fined for it. Are we fining people who are breaking the law? We have to do these things. It seems to me like you're targeting this one department and these people that are here tonight. It's not their issue, it's your issue. So I want you to put this back into your responsibility. I heard some comments like, the wages of the managers are being increased. I also heard comments from Chance about how there's an imbalance. This is places where you can save the money so we don't have to lose the people. Thank you.

Thank you, Milt. Anybody else? Come on up. If you could give us your name.

Yes. Hi. My name is Veronica Perez, and I'm a social worker with Child Protective Services. I'm pretty sure I'm losing my job because I have the lowest seniority there. But I was prepared for that. But then hearing that... 29 other social workers were going to get riffed and then 30 more demoted down to threes was shocking. I did feel that it was important to come so that you guys could see the faces of the people who are carrying the brunt of this self-inflicted wound. We are the people that have chosen to commit our careers to serving the vulnerable families in this community and protecting abused and neglected children. We have been told that this shortfall is due to a loss of institutional knowledge. So basically, someone left and the people in charge didn't know what to do with the public's money. They mismanaged it. And now the solution is to completely gut the child welfare social workers. Children will certainly die under this plan. And this is not being dramatic or exaggerating. These budget cuts have already taken away our nurses who went with us into the homes to monitor medically fragile children. And on my caseload alone, one of these nurses saved a child's life this year. She was in the home monitoring another child and saw that my child needed to be urgently hospitalized. He had been seen here twice in the ER at doctors, got really bad service and she immediately got him hospitalized at UCSF and they saved his life. So now, I mean, I'm scared. because I don't have the medical knowledge to be able to monitor this kid's care. I needed her. I really needed her. And, you know, if we, you know, even if I'm doing my best work, if I'm doing my job as best I can, I don't have that medical expertise to be able to take care of this, to monitor this kid's medical needs. Now, if we consider cutting our workforce by a third and putting all of that workload on the social workers who are left, who are also going to be demoted and paid less, it's a recipe for disaster, and it is a mess waiting to happen. And I do think that every kid that dies after this should be tied back to how you guys vote to solve this really self-inflicted error. So I hope you all consider that. Thank you.

Anybody else before we close the public hearing? Okay. Seeing nobody else, we will close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for further comments and discussion. And veto's out there too. Any comments?

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate everybody that came tonight and brought up really good points. Obviously, this is a decision that comes easy. And I know that some have said to pivot and hold off on the budget. And the concern I have with that is the other departments that are doing the same essential duties and the essential services that it keeps to keep this county running. And for that reason, I will be supporting the budget, but I would direct staff to return to the board and I chose the date December 15th because that's exactly 90 days from today with an update on the community services agency budget and the related actions to address the structural deficit and including the impacts on the positions that are being riffed. see if there's any additional funding or other revenue streams to backfill some of the positions that we are losing. So that's a way for us to really take a pause and look at it, keep the essential services going past the budget today, but it's not lost on us that lives are being affected and people are being affected, looking at those and looking for ways to save those positions. So that's it. if I can amend the motion or make the motion with this amendment, I'd support voting for the budget.

Okay. Thank you. Let's hold that and let's give everybody a chance to comment, but go ahead.

Yeah, no, it's a, this is a, you know, one of the toughest decisions I think, uh, as supervisors, you can make when you have, you're making a decision that, uh, it's going to directly affect, um, our employees and their lives. Um, Remind me again the funding that we used to push off the layoffs or the RIP, the March 31st. There was a funding we used to kind of push it along further down the line.

Yeah, sure. I have the answer. I am going to invite Angelica Ramos up because she generally will provide a more complete answer than I would. So I'm going to go ahead. Invite her up to answer.

Yeah, so the county receives sales tax funding, realignment funding that can be used.

Yeah, it was just escaping me. I'm sorry.

Yes, realignment funding. So we requested a special transfer from realignment funding that's currently going to behavioral health to come to CSA to provide a temporary bridge or path to try to get to a balanced budget with them. Okay, and that

That realignment money that we used on this board to push that time off or the riff off, we did that to give us time to try to find funding or to fix the issue.

Yeah, so I'll jump in on that part of the question. In analyzing the structural deficit as we were building different scenarios and doing a lot of the work that I was hearing about tonight, like what other options are there? Those are absolutely conversations that we had amongst our staff and our leading budget experts. And one of those was how could we bring some additional revenues in to at least give us a longer runway to, as Supervisor Grewal just said, okay, as time goes on, it's possible the situation improves. So in that conversation, This idea of transferring realignment funding from basically our mental health function over to the community services agency function emerged. It was recommended along the way. Not recommended, it was brought up as an option amongst our team. That took a lot of thoughtful consideration. It's fairly unprecedented if it has occurred In this county, in the past, it hasn't occurred on the 20 budgets I've worked on. So this was a pretty unprecedented action for us. But we felt, given all the circumstances, that it was appropriate for us to reach out and ask the board for your support to do that. But the effect of that is merely just giving us a longer runway to, number one, try to work with those impacted employees and do everything we can to place them in the best possible situation we can, given... what's available to us, and number two, give us some breathing room to hope that the situation improves during the fiscal year. Long answer, but I wanted to provide context on what happened in our meetings.

That was perfect. It kind of goes along with Manny's motion to come back and report 90 days we did give ourselves a longer runway in that regard using those funds it's a tough it's a tough decision I will be supporting the budget it is it's kind of a weird guy this is we haven't dealt with budget at least since I've been on the board that has dealt with these issues So we got good things going on in the budget that we should be celebrating, but we also got some horrible things going on in the budget. So it's a tough budget to deal with. So I will be supporting, but obviously Manny has it in his motion that we need to be looking in every nook and cranny to try to bridge that gap.

Thanks, Buck. I can't see Vito out there, but I'm assuming Any comments if you don't have...

Yeah, I will comment. So thank you all for coming in first and foremost and testifying. So during our budget briefing, I think I had explained this to some of our employees when we had our first meeting. My initial inclination is the faster we cut, the shallower the cuts were going to be. But realizing the magnitude of doing RIFs, reductions in force, And with the MOU and everything that has to be done with the MOU, we created that, from my perception, we created the right runway so we had more time to do them correctly. But I would agree with Supervisor Grewal's statement about reporting back. I think there's a chance that things get better. There's a chance that things get worse, but I'm of the belief that things will get better, and so that the reductions in force don't have to go so deep. The rest of the budget, I mean, we've been briefed on the components of the RIF extensively, and so I'm okay with the budget, with the amendment that Manny had talked about.

Great. Vito, thank you very much. I know it's almost going on 1 o'clock, your time back there, so we appreciate your dedication and being on the phone here.

We have one more caller who has asked to give a public comment.

Okay. Yeah, we closed the public hearing at this point, so I think we're, yeah.

We'll advise. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. This is, like it's been said here, this is the hardest thing we do on the Board of Supervisors. This and when we do condemnations, when we take people's property for the good of the government. This is the single most hardest thing that we have to do. And none of your comments are lost on this board, I can tell you. All of us... um feel this and and it's painful for all of us to work through this thing i you know we have a whole budget here but and but this is when we're focusing on this one issue which we rightfully should be um it's it's that important you know i lived through the um The Great Recession got on the board just before, just after the Great Recession had gotten going. And we actually, at that point, we had to reduce 25% of our workforce. There was over 1,000 people that we had to reduce and had to take their jobs from them. But we had no choice. We can't let the entire organization go down. you know, in those situations. Thank God we had people before us who had reserves and helped us kind of get through that or we would have had to eliminate a whole lot more. But just to try to preserve other services, you know, I know that's what we have to do here and it's And again, it's painful for everybody. It's not something that we want to do, but we get ourselves in this spot. We're not the federal government. We can't run deficits. We can't print money. I mean, I wish we could, but that probably wouldn't work out very well if counties could do that. And so we've got to figure out a way to right the ship and figure out a way, as we're suggesting here, How do we try to find additional funding, find a way to do this? Because we can't just deplete everything and bring all the other crucial essential services that we do down also. And so unfortunately, it's this one area. And everything that you guys have talked about here tonight is true. If you go back and look at our August 4th hearing budget or agenda item in the Board of Supervisors meeting that we had, we went through, I think Christine presented, all the areas that are going to be affected because of this. Everything you guys have talked about and more are definitely going to be affected by this. There's no question. But our options are just so limited at this point that we have to make these decisions. We have to go ahead and, again, I will support this budget. We have to support this budget. And I totally agree that the direction for staff to give us, get back to us in 90 days, I think we're all on board here, that we need to come back in 90 days and and just do everything we can to try to. And I know staff has. I know you guys have worked hard to try to figure this out up to this point. You've done everything you can. But I think it would be great if we could continue that effort and try to figure out. We have until March 31st. If we go another 90 days here, approve this budget, if that's the will of the board at this point, and then give us the next 90 days, staff the next 90 days, to see what they can do. If there's any other options, things we can do, it's great. We're able to pull some money with the realignment from BHRS. You know, as we listen to these presentations, you can see BHRS is flush in funds right now. But that money is dedicated into certain areas. Again, it's mostly federal and state funding, and we're told where to spend it, and we don't have any options with the exception of some of this realignment stuff that we can kind of grab onto. That's temporary. That doesn't solve the structural problem that we have right now. So let's see what we can do with this. Again, I will support the budget and I very much appreciate all of you being here and staying so late tonight and all the meetings we've had and everything we've done to discuss this and try to work this out. Let's still see if there's a way we can do this. And again, don't think that your comments are lost on us and that this is easy for us to do. We have 27 departments that we have to worry about, which all provide services to the community. We're just trying to work through this. So I'll look for a motion at this point then.

Sure. Prior to receiving a final motion, I just had a couple of clarifications I wanted to comment on. But again, I just want to, obviously it's your time for any other questions, final comments. But prior to final motion, just wanted to make a couple clarifications. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and provide a couple clarifications. And I appreciate the interest in coming back. Please know we will be consistently monitoring any changes in the process. in our financial forecasting. This is the number one topic in our entire budget universe right now. I do want to just clarify, we will be back prior to or on December 15th. December 15th is right about 90 days, so I just want to be clear, it might be 93 days or something. We also may come back on December 8th if we have the information and that presents a better opportunity to have the conversation. So one of those two meetings is likely where we'll pivot. Just please give us a little wiggle room on exactly what day we come back. I also just want to clarify that we will essentially be on two different tracks, kind of parallel tracks going forward. One track is initiating employee communications with all those employees impacted. We have obligations under our MOUs to initiate those communications. We have a strong track record in the county of trying to find other opportunities for employees. Our HR team will be meeting with employees and going through options that might present themselves. As mentioned earlier, we've had this countywide hiring freeze in place where we've been reserving positions in other departments. as potential landing places, those departments are asking when can we expect some staff who may want to transfer over to some of these positions. So that process will be in motion, working with employees, working with our labor groups and so forth to try to make sure that everyone has all the information and opportunities as possible. At the same time, we'll have a separate track that is constantly reevaluating the financial condition of CSA and whether or not any of the recommendations and positions that are involved in tonight's budget could be restored. The labor process has a natural seniority-based system built into it so that if an employee is impacted in the MOUs by seniority, they have an opportunity to come back into a position if it is restored and if funding is restored. So I just want to make sure that's tracked. It's kind of in the weeds, but I want you to know we'll be going down both of those parallel tracks at the same time and keeping you updated along the way. and also always welcoming your questions and concerns at any of our future board meetings.

Okay, thanks Jody. All right, let's look for a motion.

Before I make the motion, I just want a couple more points of clarification. I know when I met with members, the concerned members, we had the Zoom call last week. One of the things that was brought up was management to employee ratio and then I know my colleague also brought it up today. So I did do my research on that with CEO's office. The community service agency has 51 management positions for a department of roughly 1,027 frontline workers, a ratio of about 5%. It's the lowest ratio for the entire county as far as management frontline staff. And then as we are going through this process of reduction of force, six management positions were vacated on the August 4th meeting, and tonight's is an additional two unfilled positions also being vacated. So of the 67 positions that are being vacated, reduced age or management positions so higher than proportion roughly about 11% of the positions that are being reduced our management positions so I did want to clarify that because I know there was some concern that it's just frontline workers that are being reduced not the management and so I wanted to make that clarification prior to making the motion of so the motion I was going to plan to make was all 11 staff recommendations that have already been given to us with an additional with an addition to the motion to direct staff to return to the Board of Supervisors by December 15th 2026 it can be before that if there's updates with an update on the community services agency budget and the related actions to address the structural deficit including the impacts on the positions that are being reduced.

May I ask who gave you those numbers as far as the ratios and when did you get them? I spoke with the CEO about four o'clock today, and that's- So you got it at four o'clock, because I've been asking for those ratios for three years, and I haven't got it. Maybe my timing is right. No, I've been asking for those numbers for three years, and not just for one department, but all departments. Because I've been told that they're doing an analysis on those ratios, and I have been asking consistently. I voted against the last two budgets because of lack of numbers and ratios and data. But if Supervisor Graywall could get those answers at 4 p.m. today, two hours before today's meeting, I don't know why it's taken me three years to get them.

Yeah, I think it's important for me to provide some clarification. Supervisor Condit, we did not provide any information today that you have previously requested and is in process from our HR team. Our HR team let me know that as part of this budget process, there was some additional information you requested and they were still working on it and they were unable to provide it, I think, in the fashion that you may have requested. So please know.

No, I've been very specific on these last two budgets about the ratio numbers between managers and frontline staff.

Yeah, in each one of our budget briefings, we have provided a worksheet. We thought that that worksheet met the request that you had provided.

No, I understand, but Supervisor Graywall is very specific on the numbers between managers and frontline employees. I haven't ever seen anything specific like that before. So I just, obviously I've made the request. It's been three years. I would like to have each department break down just as Supervisor Graywall was afforded two hours before the meeting.

So I'm going to go forward what information was provided. And again, I think the information that we've had in our budget briefings, I'd like to sit down with you, go through it, and you can tell me what data might be missing because we have been including that in the last few cycles. So I would appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you and go through that. Today I was asked for clarification on management impacts. I think some misunderstandings out there about how many managers were included in the recommendations before you. And the information that I did provide, there were just a couple of slight nuances here. Number one is that CSA currently has 52 managers. That is a public record. That's in the information that's been provided. in our board briefings. That is about 5% of their total position allocation. That information is also in our budget briefing documents and also public record. They deleted six vacant manager positions on August 4th. So that was a public agenda item that came before the board and the board approved six management position deletions. Today, there were two additional positions, management positions being deleted. And for clarification, those are filled positions going through a reduction in force. So in total, over the August actions and tonight's actions, we have eight management positions impacted, six vacant, and two filled. You can look at the total number of positions that were impacted in August. It was 71 positions and I think tonight we're at 67. Is that correct?

71. 71 tonight?

71 August 4th. No, I'm talking about tonight. Yes, 71 August 4th and 67 full-time positions in this action tonight. Okay. So then it merely is just taking the ratio of those positions and how many in total were management positions. I think that's the ratio we're talking about. This isn't any new analysis or anything like that.

No, I know. I've asked for ratios in the past by each department, similar to what Supervisor Graywall was provided two hours before the meeting, and I've had trouble even getting that.

Okay. Let's move on. So we have a motion, and we're going to look for a second.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. We'll do a roll call vote.

District 1, Supervisor Buck-Condit.

Aye.

District 3, Supervisor Terry Withrow. Yes. District 4, Supervisor Manny Grewal. Aye. District 5, Supervisor Chance-Condit.

Nay.

District 2, Chairman Chiesa.

That's an aye. And I am going to drop off this call after this item is done. Because we have an early morning tomorrow.

Very good, thanks. Okay, it's a 4-1 vote. The budget is approved. Okay, thank you all very much for being here. We're going to take a quick five-minute break here.

I had 1010.

Okay, I think we're going to try to get going here again, guys. We'll call the meeting back to order. And we'll move on to item 7-2, public hearing to consider adoption of the Stanislaus Home Consortium and Stanislaus Urban County fiscal year 25-26. Annual report.

Good evening. I'm Anna San Nicolas with Stanislaus County Planning and Community Development, Deputy Director for Community Development Services. Before you today, we have our Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, so-called CAPER, for fiscal year 25-26. So the grouping of these jurisdictions, Stanislaus Urban County and the Stanislaus Home Consortium, include all the cities except Modesto and Turlock for the Urban County and all of the cities except Modesto for the Home Consortium. So the county's been the lead since 2001 for the Urban County and since 2023 for the Home Consortium. And the grouping allows us to apply for federal funds from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development annually. And part of this process is requirements of reporting. So what we're showing you tonight, the CAPER, is the results and accomplishments of the annual action plan that we submit annually to HUD. And it aligns to the goals and priorities of our five-year strategic plan. So our annual allocations for 25-26 fiscal year for the community development block grant funds was 2.3 million, for emergency solutions grants it was 202,582, for a total of 2.5 million. So as you can see the breakdown before you, each city this last fiscal year received an allocation so they could invest in their primary approved projects from their annual plan. So the majority of the cities, well actually all the cities, chose to do infrastructure to address health and safety issues in the community, as well as the county, which we invest our funding in the West Modesto Infrastructure Improvements Project. And then we set aside 15%, which is the cap allowed by HUD for public services to help address community needs. And then we set aside a portion for fair housing and Each city is given a portion for administration oversight of their projects. And so the Community Development Block Grant Program, again, is to help directly benefit low and moderate income households and individuals. It's to help prevent slum and blight conditions in the community or to help meet a particular community development need. And in this CAPER, we're also reporting on the last year of the Community Development CARES or CV funding. so that's also included or it could be any activities similar to CDBG but associated with COVID preparedness recovery or prevention. So before you is a listing of the projects that CDBG money was invested in over this last fiscal year. Stancils County, again, with the West Modesto Project, specifically the Spencer Marshall neighborhood, also known as Area 7, and then Area 9, which is our Rouse, Colorado neighborhood. So construction is underway for both project areas, and then estimated to be completed in November of this fiscal year. And then we will start with onsite sewer connections in partnership with the City of Modesto and thanks to some additional funding that we were receiving from the State Water Board. And then we have three cities completing infrastructure projects this year, Waterford, Oakdale, and Houston, while the rest were underway this year and will be under construction within the next fiscal year. So for public services, our 15% that we put out for these activities, we were able to fund six public service programs, CASA for their work for kids exiting the foster care system, Children's Crisis Center with some shelter support for two of their programs, one out in Turlock and another one in Ceres. And then Center for Human Services for Family Resource Center Haven for some legal services provided to their clientele and the We Care Program for Shelter and Substance Abuse Program based out in Turlock but they also take care of people in general. So there is no restrictions, even though they are based out in Turlock. And so this year we were able to assist unduplicated individuals with these six programs, 1,211 individuals. And you'll see a breakdown of the categories of the statistics of the people that were assisted just with these public services. And then this is the last year of our COVID CDBG funding. Back in 2020, we received 2.7 million, 12 programs were funded. It was for shelter, food pantries, It was basically to prevent or help recover and protect clients and staff from COVID. And so this ended June 30th, 2026 with 7,369 people served over the six year period. And that's unduplicated. And then this last fiscal year, when we're finishing up the funding, 127 people were served. So the Emergency Solutions Program is another HUD program through this CAPER report. It is to help people get off the streets, put them into shelter with some services to help stabilize, provide rental assistance and homeless prevention, such as to prevent homelessness, like paying arrears so they don't become homeless. And so this last fiscal year we were able to fund Center for Human Services for their youth low barrier shelter, Haven for their shelter for domestic violence clients, and the We Care program based out in Turlock assisting shelter and rapid rehousing rental assistance clients. So a total of 223 unduplicated individuals were served. Eight were transition to permanent housing and independent living. And again, homeless individuals and rental assistance was provided this last fiscal year. Now the goals over the last, Five, well, the goals that you have before you is for the five-year plan. So housing, homeless services, infrastructure activities, public services. The expected outcomes were the housing units, persons assisted, households assisted, and persons assisted for those categories. So you see before you the five-year plan. On the bottom half, you have year one. So housing, it shows that we had a goal of 10 this last year, but we weren't able to meet that. But I need to explain, and we'll go into quick little detail on the projects. The projects that we have are underway. Once they're underway, we'll more than meet that goal for more than one year. Right now it's showing zero, but the projects are underway. Homeless services, we were able to meet half of our goal this year with 223 out of 350. Infrastructure, with three projects completed, we completed half of our goal, hoping to reach higher numbers with upcoming year. And public services, we met the goal to 101%. So similar to CDBG, we receive an annual allocation of home funding, but that's for the home consortium. So we receive approximately $1.2 million every year. And so this funding is for rehab, purchasing of properties, acquisition of land for the development of affordable housing and also for down payment assistance and for rehab of properties and units. Now this funding is shared amongst the home consortium. If no one has a ready to fund project, Within the first six months, we do meet with each city and check any projects that may be feasible. If they're not prepared to with the environmental or financial feasibility, we then, the funding goes into a pot for housing requests for proposals. So last year we did a request for proposals in September 2025, and then we funded, two projects in December 2025. So the first project is Abbey Street out in Empire for 1.2 million in home funding. It's on 100 South Abbey Street with already four existing buildings and we'll add five additional units. And a second project that was awarded last December is the Park Street Cottages for 1.6 million. Both of these projects are being developed by the Stanislaus Regional Housing Authority. And Park Street Cottages will bring in a triplex and already have a single family home existing on the property. And then we'll add an additional triplex and five units of housing. And both of these projects are affordable rental housing developments and currently in the environmental review process. Now when we came to you before for our annual action plan, there were some questions on the prior home consortium funding. So when we took over as the lead, the City of Turlock still holds program income and line of credit from the previous home consortium funding. So altogether there's about five point, I'm sorry, 9.2 million, five million in home funding and 4.2 million in home American recovery plan funding over this last year. fiscal year, City of Turlock conducted two requests for proposals, one for home funding and $3.4 million for affordable housing development. Three proposals were received and it's anticipated to go to Council November 17th of this year. And then another RFP was released for $3.5 million in affordable rental housing development with $700,000 going to supportive services. Now this RFP will close October 14th. And any remaining funding the City of Turlock has indicated will be used for first-time homebuyer programs in the consortium cities and county. And to give you a quick overview of the public comment process, we released the paper for public review on August 7th. Mel emailed out early August to our community development email listserv, published in the Bee on August 7th, presented to Turlock Collaborative, Community Collaborative, and each city and the county had community meetings throughout August and September. getting feedback from the community. The only feedback we received was from the city of Ceres actually last night. And it was regarding more participation from the community and they wanted to be more involved with social media and our outreach efforts. And then we come to you today for our public hearing. So staff recommendations today is to help us with the public hearing and to adopt the fiscal year 25-26 CAPER and to authorize staff to incorporate comments received into the CAPER and then submit to HUD and make any edits as directed by HUD. Any questions?

Very good, Dana. Thank you, and Angela. Thank you. Any questions for staff before we open the public hearing? Seeing none, we will open the public hearing. Milt, come on up.

Yes, Milt Riewiler. We referenced this maybe, what was it, three or four months ago, the fact that the city of Turlock, when they closed the Stanislaus County Home Consortium Agreement in 2023, there was, I believe it was just mentioned now, $9.2 million left, and that we had to, the city of Turlock had to spend half a million dollars or $500,000 of that Before the end of the year or it was going to go back to the federal government at least that's my understanding I'm not sure what the technicality is but Someone did want that money. I'm gonna guess it was Patterson, but at least someone else did want that five hundred thousand and So I want to make sure that that $500,000 was not wasted. It's not being laundered. Here's what we can have some laundering of money in Turlock. And it's not even going back to the government. It's just being taken by Turlock because that can happen. So we can't have that. So I'd like to make sure that that hasn't happened. I'd like to get an accounting of that half a million dollars that was supposed to be spent this year. Thank you.

Angela, go ahead.

Yes, we are not in control of the City of Turlock's money that they have prior. We took over in 2023, so we are responsible for the funds that came in after 2023. So the funding that Mr. Treatweiler is speaking about is in control by the City of Turlock, so any accounting of that money would need to be done by the city of Turlock. We have met with the Turlock staff, and they do seem very committed to making sure that none of that funding is lost, and they have released RFPs to move that money forward.

Thank you, Angela.

And, Milt, very good that you remembered that from the meeting before. That's great that you're pointing that out, and now we need you to go to the city council in Turlock and ask them that same question. So thank you for doing that. Okay. Any other... Public comments? Nothing online. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for further discussion or a motion.

Motion to approve. Second.

We got a motion and a second. I don't think we need to go all in favor. Say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Pass unanimously. Thank you guys very much. That's great.

We'll move on now to item 8.

BHRS. Thank you guys for staying here tonight.

Oh, important topic. Vice Chairman Withrow and Board of Supervisors, C.O. Hayes, County Council, both, we are here to present on the approval of retroactive agreements for behavioral health and recovery services for the provision of mental health substance use disorder in ancillary services with cumulative amounts of $200,000 or greater. related actions. I am Rudy Imperial. I am the county's Behavioral Health Director along with Sam Groves, our Chief Administrative Officer. So some background on our department. As I've shared before, we provide directly and through qualified behavioral health contractors treatment services for serious mental illness and mental health and for substance use disorders. These contracted services include outpatient residential crisis and recovery programs. We also provide housing and other essential supportive services through these types of contracts. Medi-Cal provider agreements are central to the service delivery model of the department, and BHS currently manages nearly 200 behavioral health services agreements. Contracts help maintain access and continuity across systems of care. Today we are, for fiscal year 2027, the department seeks retroactive approval of renewals for 35 agreements representing approximately $91.5 million in total contract authority. services. What that means is that services continued after prior agreements expired on June 30th, 2026, preventing destruction from individuals receiving ongoing treatment and other critical services. Of the 91, the $91.5 million is the total amount for those contracts for the whole year for the annual basis. However, approximately 22.7 million in services were provided from July through September in this status where we did not have a contract in place with these providers. Concurrent with county policy, contractors generally did not receive payment pending board approval and execution of these agreements. So these contractors have been providing services with the exception of three providers, which we provided what we call bridge purchase orders in the amount of $200,000 for three providers of the 35. So although these contractors were providing services, we have not paid them because we have not had a contract. Upon approval of this board agenda item, the department will then execute payments and review the invoices of the services provided through this time. I do want to say that we have looked at our processes and the reasons why for such a large number of these agreements and I want to communicate to the board that this has been taken very serious within our department. We have had the internal management conversations to ensure that we have processes and policies in place to make sure that this type of retroactive and this amount and this number do not occur again and that we decrease the amount of these agreements going retroactive. Not only did we have internal conversations, I've already had conversations with county council and our general services agency also to build out collaborations and partnerships with them to ensure that the processes that we saw and experienced some challenges over this last several months also are resolved and fixed. We want to make sure that the Board of Supervisors know that our leadership team is committed to implementing the following process improvements to make this a rare occurrence, if at all. Some of the recommended process improvements to prevent these agreements, again, from going retroactive. looked at our legal review process and began to improve clarifying responsibilities and timelines and identify potential delays for corrective action. We had some changes in the review and some of the staffing in the review process of our legal agreements. And at the same time, we were trying to incorporate additional Medi-Cal regulations and new Behavioral Health Services Act regulations, which led to some delays in terms of the legal process and the legal review and that partnership collaboration with the county council's office. That was some of the reasons why we experienced some difficulties there. We also are recommending as a process improvement to allow amendments increasing contract maximums up to the 15% when sufficient board approved appropriations are available. Some of these agreements had these levels of margins within these contracts that if we've had this authority we could also renew these agreements within that range. That's particularly important for behavioral health and healthcare type services where we do have these fluctuations in services and we do need providers to increase capacity or to respond to needs as they emerge in the community. This is a common practice, especially across healthcare in terms of how these contracts are managed. We also clarified authority for the department to extend contract end dates when all other contract provisions remain unchanged, supporting continuity of services. This was some current, we were operating under a past practice in terms of we had the authority to extend agreements when no other part of the contract was changed. And there was some communication that led to us to believe that that was no longer the case. So that was also one of the drivers in some of these agreements allowing them to lapse and had no recourse in terms of going back and resolving that in the ways we've done that in other contracts where as long as nothing has changed and we have the budget authority and we have the budget resources available that we can extend the term of the agreement and that was it, just the amount of time. One of the other things that we did is clarify retroactive policy. We notified all of our contractor providers that retroactive agreements will no longer be permitted. We had had in the organization over the last administrations this approach from our contractors that unless we had resolved all of their contract provisions that they had wanted changed or adjusted, that there was not a willingness to sign these agreements, and that the department had gone in times past with retroactive agreements. We've clearly stated, I've communicated with our contractors that we would forward that in the event that there is a lapse in the agreement beyond the control of the department or the contractor, that we would no longer be honoring those payments, those services, and that we would be working very diligently to make sure that those conditions and those agreements are resolved and brought up within time. The last thing I'll say that we're doing as a process improvement to address this issue moving forward is we've established a contract administration division dedicated to negotiation, processing, monitoring, and oversight. We do have our current negotiation process right now relies on our divisions and our systems chiefs and division chiefs basically to negotiate these contracts throughout the organization and various timelines, processes, so on and so forth. We centralized that administrative contracting functions within a division to centralize that and improve that process and that was with some of the recommendations that we made today. Some of the staff recommendations in the adopted budget move that forward. So recommendations here today, approve renewals to the behavioral health and recovery services agreements with cumulative amounts of $200,000 or greater, authorize the general services agency director, purchasing agent, or designee to sign and execute all renewal agreements, and then authorize the general services agency purchasing agent or designee to approve and execute amendments to the agreements listed in this agenda item as attachment one, not to exceed 15% of the original board-approved contract amount subject to available budget. And with that, I'll take questions.

Okay. Thanks, Ruben. Any questions for Ruben? Ruben, it sounds like this budget we just passed is going to help you out.

I have several recommendations we're working on to improve the process.

Very good. Thank you. Okay. Open this to the public. Any questions from the public? No. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Yes, if I understand this correctly, this three words, this looks bad. Is that correct? Am I seeing that correctly? Is this what I've been talking about the whole night? The money laundering? This sounds bad. You guys have got to do better. You represent the county of Stanislaus. I've heard a million dollars being lost, but I don't know what that figure was, 22 million? I don't know, I hope I'm wrong. You can't do this. This is not the way a county government or any government needs to work. This is not good for anyone. That is disgraceful. I remember when Wilson lost a million dollars and everyone got excited. I don't know what else to say.

Just to clarify, Milton, I don't want to cut you off. I'll let you finish.

No, but you can answer questions if I'm totally wrong.

Yeah, no, you are. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, no money was lost. It was just a delay in payment to these individuals. They worked for it and they earned the money that's owed to them, but they just weren't paid. So is that a good explanation of it, Ruben? Yeah.

Let's allow the department to clarify. Number one, if any funds have been lost by the department. And number two, what was the effect of not having these agreements in place in a timely manner?

Yes, so there was no money loss. What had happened is that the contractors have been providing services without the contract. Based on the previous service agreements that we have had, the net effect of it was that with this approval here today is that they have basically not been paid and that The one month of July was the invoices that we've not paid. If this item is approved today, what will happen is we will pay that July invoice, and that's the only back invoice that we will be paying. The August and September invoices will be paid as normal.

Okay.

Very good. Thank you. Okay. Bring it back to the board for further comment, discussion, or a motion. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Pass unanimously. Thank you, guys. Okay, we'll move on to Board of Supervisors reports. Any?

Just a quick report, Vice Chair. So we did have our 30th community cleanup out in the city of Newman over the weekend. We filled a total of five bins, which accumulated to 15,000 tons of debris and trash that was hauled off to the landfill. I do want to thank the mayor of Newman, Casey Graham, for volunteering his time. He's out there for several hours during Saturday, as well as Fire Chief Bowen and some of the Newman firefighters for coming out and volunteering. It was a very successful event for Newman, and we filled a lot of bins up.

Okay, thanks, Chance. That's great. You've been doing that a ton. I know out there. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, we'll go on to our legislative fiscal and management report. Chief Executive Officer Jody Hayes.

I'll be quick. I do need to recognize that Chair Chiesa has recently signed advocacy letters on behalf of the board, one for the City of Riverbanks FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure Communities Project, and the other for San Joaquin Valley Regional Association of California Counties, urging the federal administration to address prolonged FEMA public assistance reimbursement delays. Also need to recognize that Congress is back in session and that's where Vito is back there supporting our interests. The public should know that Roselle Avenue will have another overnight closure for the North County corridor project. This will happen on Thursday from 6.30 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Friday. And there are instructions for how to avoid those delays. And one final announcement. It's an event. Stanislaus County Office of Emergency Services will host the second annual Emergency Preparedness Day this Saturday, September 19th, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Stanislaus State Interlock. free community event, feature safety demonstrations, local first responders, preparedness resources, and information to support your families staying safe in our community. Thank you.

Perfect. Thanks, Tony. Thank you guys all for being here so late. Sorry it's such a late meeting. Sergeant Carranza, thank you very much. Sorry I kept you so late. I know you told your wife you're going to be home late. Good deal. All right. This meeting is adjourned.